Code Lyoko: Survivor
by A-QueenOfFairys
Summary: Odd starts having strange nightmares about the destruction of Kadic and a warning of similar events to come. The best way to find out what's going on is to turn on the Supercomputer, but Xana is released again, along with a bigger threat. Odd's POV
1. Prologue

This was once a peaceful place. Now whole buildings lay in ruins. Shattered glass and rubble covered the ground. It had been a place of learning; a school. But now it was just…ruins. Various people lay strewn around the ground; students, teachers, military…all motionless. Some may have survived but it was impossible to tell at this time.

Flashes of distant memories resurfaced.

_Students cowered. Teachers were yelling, their words echoed but were indecipherable. Three armed military men stood in front of an unknown teenager. He stared defiantly back at the men. "Don't shoot, they're just kids!" Three shots rang out, and the men's screams rose into the air as they collapsed onto the ground. The students started to panic. The teenager lowered his arm. His clenched fist opened and a fire blazed in the palm of his hand._

Something stirred in the destroyed grounds.

_The building was alight. The teachers and students had nowhere to go. Three teenagers came to join the first, and another figure rose from the smoke._

There was a boy.

Much younger than he looked, leaning against a wall that hadn't been completely destroyed.

He didn't seem…real as such. He was partially see-through, like a ghost. But he was there. Gazing around at the destruction. Technically, he'd once been a student there, before it was brought to the ground.

He swept his purple-furred tail across the ground, sending dust into the air. He had to warn someone, before this dream could become a reality. He had to warn them, only they could help. He had to warn the Lyokô Warriors…

Xana was on the move.

* * *

Just another average day at Kadic. Classes, students, teachers, annoying but hot Principal's daughters…just another normal day. I'm Odd della Robbia, student at Kadic Academy. Average grades, good artist, class rep, X-superhero…that's right. You heard what I said. I was only a new student when it happened…

See, one day Jeremie Belpois, one of my friends, stumbled upon an abandoned Supercomputer while looking for robot parts in an old car factory. He turned on the computer to find a pink-haired girl named Aelita, along with a dangerous autonomous virus known as Xana. The Supercomputer was the mainframe for a virtual world called Lyoko. Jeremie wanted to bring Aelita back to Earth but her stolen memory was keeping her from doing so. Xana, on the other hand, wanted to destroy Aelita, so she attacked Jeremie. My best friend Ulrich and I witnessed him being zapped with electricity by the drink machine, and Jeremie had to be taken to the Infirmary. Ulrich then later saw him being attacked by his robots, Jeremie claimed they were only programmed to play basketball. Ulrich demanded to know what was going on, so Jeremie took him to the factory and showed him the Supercomputer. Ulrich didn't believe him, of course, so Jeremie suggested putting a guinea-pig into the Scanner to test them. Ulrich nominated my poor little dog Kiwi…

Luckily I was able to stop Ulrich from getting Kiwi in the Scanner, but I was sent to Lyoko instead. I have to admit I was really surprised when I arrived; on new land that looked like a video game with heightened senses, no little fingers and a tail. I'm still not clear on why it happened, but it didn't bother me so much after I got used to it. It was actually really fun!

Anyway, I was told to head for Aelita's tower while Ulrich was sent in as backup. He was a samurai, go figure. We got lost on the way and found a different tower, the Way Tower. Since the tower didn't have a door, we fell down the data stream into the Ice Sector. There we got devirtualised by some Bloks, we didn't know where to hit the monsters.

The next day, Ulrich was training with Yumi in the gym when Ulrich was attacked by a giant ball of electricity. They both came to the factory, and Yumi was virtualised as a geisha. We met up with Aelita, and launched a return to the past after deactivating Xana's tower.

From then on, we called ourselves the Lyoko Warriors. We fought to destroy Xana, recover Aelita's memory, then save her father, Waldo "Franz Hopper" Schaeffer, from the Digital Sea.

Unfortunately, Waldo gave himself up to power Jeremie's multi-agent program that would destroy Xana, and we lost him, along with Xana, for good.

So we've been living boring normal lives for the past couple of months now. I don't think anyone else would say it, but I think we might actually miss Xana trying to destroy the world. We loved our jobs, but it had to end sometime.

Everyone seems so happy with our lives now. Just average students going average things learning to be able to make our future better.

But lately I haven't been able to shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen…

…it's not over yet.


	2. Premonitions

I opened my eyes and took a slow step forward, feeling rubble crunch beneath my feet. All around me stood short brick walls, the rest of them had been torn to the ground. Every bit of the ruined buildings had been scorched black, as if a fire had torn through the area. Bits of furniture mingled in with the buildings' debris, and it all looked familiar. The layout of the remaining walls resembled that of the buildings on Kadic's ground. But it couldn't be Kadic, could it?

I noticed some students as well, and I knew them. Kadic Academy students. But what on Earth happened here? I must be dreaming…but it seems so real. I willed my feet to take me towards where the dorms had been, followed by a trail of dust. I felt a pang of sadness as I reached the old entrance, hardly anything was left of the dorms. I knew where everything was, every corridor, every room, every building, every secret passage…

Dust crunched behind me and I turned around, only to see more destruction. The noise had merely been crumbled brick falling off a wall nearby. I've seen enough. I have to get away!

I whipped back around to try and break into a run, but I noticed some colour through all the greys and reds, a colour I know well. I stopped and focused my attention on the colour, to find myself staring right back.

A panicked for a few seconds, taking a couple of steps back. What the heck is going on? There was another _me_ sitting on top of a half-destroyed wall about 20 metres in front of me. I couldn't let go of his – my – gaze. The other me didn't seem to blink, almost like a cat. No, he is a cat, well, half-cat at least. I'm looking at myself from Lyoko, after Jeremie modified our outfits. He's taller, and the colour of his suit is darker than the one I originally had, and so is the fur on his ears and tail.

"_Odd_"

But he wasn't completely there; he was see-through, like a ghost.

"_Odd!_"

He tensed, ready to jump down from the wall.

"_ODD!_"

I blinked open my eyes to find Ulrich staring down at me, his eyebrows creased in a frown. This can't be good. He was already in his day clothes, "You're going to be late for class" Ulrich moved back to his bed to finish getting ready.

I sat up and quickly shielded my eyes from the blinding morning sunlight streaming through the window, letting out a low moan, "What time is it?"

"It's 7:30 in the morning, you missed the alarm!" there was a definite hint of annoyance in his voice.

I'd gone to sleep early last night, but I still felt as if I'd had no sleep at all. I rolled sideways and dropped onto the floor with a 'thud!,' wincing in pain. I lifted my head to register Ulrich picking up his bag and walking to the door, stopping as I picked myself up, and laughed.

I sighed and leaned on the bed to help me to my feet, and Ulrich passed through the door beside me, "See you later, Odd"

* * *

I sprinted through Kadic grounds, gasping for breath as I raced to class. The bell had rung a few minutes ago and the classroom was on the other side of campus, lucky me. I slowed down as I noticed a pink-haired girl glancing around worriedly. Her expression lifted as she spotted me, "Odd! You nearly missed roll call!"

I joined her as we walked into the building, "Sorry Aelita, I slept in by accident. I was having this really weird dream-"

"Stones! Della Robbia!"

I cringed as Jim's voice boomed out behind us, "Why aren't you two in class yet?"

Aelita responded quickest, as my mind was still trying to wake itself up, "We had to run an errand, but we're heading to class now."

"Oh, yeah? So why is Odd so puffed and you look perfectly fine?"

I jumped in, words spilling out of my mouth as they came to me, "I was running laps around one of the buildings while Aelita was talking with our…client," Jim raised one of his eyebrows, "well we'd better get to class now. Wouldn't want to be marked absent!"

I put on my usual grin and grabbed Aelita's arm, running for the classroom before Jim could ask any more questions.

We sped through the door just as Ms Hertz called out, "della Robbia?"

"Present!" She looked up from the roll and shot a glare at Aelita and I as we moved to sit down. Jeremie and Ulrich were sitting beside each other at a desk, so Aelita and I took another. Ms Hertz cleared her throat and continued with the roll.

* * *

Part way through the lesson, I noticed everything was going blurry. My arms faltered under the weight of my head, so I lifted it off and rested my arms on the table. Ms Hertz' voice was getting less and less audible, and I found myself gradually drifting off.

* * *

Rubble shifted under my feet as I surveyed the same surroundings as in my previous dream. The only difference was I was now standing in the previous location of the science rooms. A slight wariness crept up through me as I glanced around, my gaze finally resting on my other self. He was perched on another wall, still far off from where I was standing, this time simply watching his tail tip sway back and forth. Although I found it strange, what else could you do sitting around in a place like this all day?

He looked up all of a sudden and our eyes met again. A thought jumped into my head. _Are there any survivors?_

My other self turned away, and I thought I saw a hint of sadness in his eyes. He nodded at a pile of rubble to my right. I took a deep breath and wrenched my gaze away from his direction, heading towards the rubble. I felt my heart beat faster as I noticed a tinge of pink in amongst the brown and grey. Aelita was lying in an awkward position, decked in her Lyoko suit. I upped my pace and stopped at her side, kneeling. I parted the hair away from her eyes gently, and she stirred. I sensed a wave of panic from behind me, and heard my other self jump down off the wall. I turned, trying to figure out what was wrong. He seemed frozen to the spot, unable to move. Something in his gaze warned me to move. I tried to stand up, but a cold hand gripped my arm. I whipped around to stare right into Xana's eyes, and everything went black.


	3. Sleep Deprivation

There was nothing. Just nothing. I was suspended in a blackness going on forever, and it hurt. But I had no physical form, no proper consciousness. But I was aware of the pain. I thought I could hear something, faint, like footsteps, and a shot rang out. Laser arrow.

In a split second, everything was bathed in white light tinged with darker shadows, and I could feel myself again. My head and arm ached like heck, and I was still tired. My back was cold, so I figured I was on the tiled science room floor. It was a few seconds before anything came into clear enough focus for me to realise that my friends were looking down at me. Ms Hertz was there too, and she didn't look very happy.

Ulrich was the first to speak, "Odd! Are you OK?" He looked relieved as I grunted in response, as words failed to come to my mouth. Ms Hertz on the other hand…

"Della Robbia! What do you think you're doing falling asleep in the middle of my class?" I flinched as she grabbed my arm tight and hauled me up with little or no effort on her part, only to feel my legs fall out from underneath me as fatigue gripped my body. Ulrich came to the rescue and supported me on his shoulder. The expression on Ms Hertz' face hadn't changed. "To the Principal's office, now!"

I tried to walk without Ulrich's help, but I only ended up falling again. Ulrich shifted my weight back on to him and asked, "Can I take him?"

The science teacher let out a small growl, before taking out a piece of paper and writing something on it. "Very well, Mr Stern, but I advise you catch up on our lesson in your own time. Your grades can hardly take a hit at the rate they're going." She gave Ulrich the paper. "Give this to Mr Delmas."

The class' eyes were on us as Ulrich guided me out of the classroom.

"What was that about?" he seemed concerned, unlike this morning's frustration.

I bowed my head slightly and told him the truth, "I really don't know. I woke up tired this morning, but now it's even worse."

Ulrich seemed puzzled. "It was really strange, you seemed to hit your head hard when you fell but you stayed asleep until a few minutes later. Ms Hertz was even yelling her head off at you, boy that was a sight to see!"

Somehow I found the energy to laugh with him, the thought of Ms Hertz yelling at a semi-unconscious body was too much to bear. We walked in silence after that for a few minutes before having to struggle up the Admin building stairs.

"Do you think we should stop by the infirmary first, just in case?"

I shook my head. "No, I should be fine."

Ulrich knocked on the door to the secretary's office and she let us through. Ulrich heaped me to sit down and murmured a small "good luck" before giving Mr Delmas the paper and leaving. It was kind of embarrassing to rely on this sort of help from him all the time.

Kadic's principal didn't seem all that intimidating as he read the note. "So you fell asleep in class again, Odd? This really has to stop you know." He looked up at me with a frown on his face, and inspected mine. A look of worry crossed his features. I must still have looked pale and dreary-eyed. "Are you sure you're OK, della Robbia?"

"No, I haven't been getting enough sleep lately."

"Do you know why?"

I stumbled for words, "I-I'm having…nightmares" It was as close as I could get without saying anything too revealing.

Mr Delmas raised his eyebrows. "Recurring nightmares?"

I nodded.

"Maybe you should go and see Yolande about this, she should be able to help you."

"Now?"

"Yes, you can be excused of any misbehaviour this time, but as soon as you're well again it will not be looked over like this."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Sir."

"You are excused."

I shakily got out of my seat and headed to the door, relieved as Ulrich got out of his seat by the wall. I wasn't sure if he'd stay or not. I shook my head when he offered to help me again, I think I've got my balance under control again. We headed out of the secretary's office before he asked, "Well?"

"I have to go and see Yolande, so she can see what she can do. But…" I stopped. "Ulrich I don't think this is to do with sleep deprivation."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know." I lowered my voice as we headed out of the building. "I keep dreaming about Xana, and the whole of the school grounds has been torn down."

Ulrich looked puzzled for a moment. "You think it could be a premonition?"

"I'm not sure."

"We should talk to Jeremie about this."

I turned towards the auditormium, "OK, but first I have to see Yolande or Delmas will get suspicious. See you later."

"See you."

"Oh, and don't mention this to anyone. I want to be there when we do."

"OK." Ulrich cast another worried look back at me before running back to class and I walked sloppily towards the infirmary.

Yolande was storing some towels back in a cupboard, but she looked up as I entered. "Is something wrong, Odd?" As I came closer, she got up and hurried over. "Are you feeling all right? You look pale."

"I've been losing sleep, Mr Delmas told me to see you."

She ushered me over to the bed. "Sit here, I have some questions to ask you."


	4. Dreams and Nightmares

I edged down the stairs of the Admin building, still half asleep. The last ten minutes had been spent answering Yolande's questions about my 'sleep deprivation.' But that's just it: the problem wasn't sleep deprivation, it was something bigger. I had lied to her, of course, and pretended to go along with the idea of sleep deprivation.

I had delivered a note to Delmas, signed by Yolande, excusing me from classes so I could catch up on sleep, and was now heading to the science building to collect my books and excuse myself from class. As I neared the building, the bell rang to signal the end of the period. I tried to quicken my pace, which is rather hard to do when practically sleeping on your feet, but I was met by the others halfway along the hallway. Ulrich was carrying my bag.

"How are you feeling?" Aelita has a very caring nature. She was always there for a friend in need, that's one of the main things I love about her. Not _love_ love, that's Jérémie's area of 'expertise.' Sort of. He has a really goofy way of going about it.

"I'm fine. Yolande says I need to take as many days as I need off school to catch up on sleep."

Ulrich handed me my bag, "Lucky. We've got maths next!"

I didn't smile like I usually would. "Guys, I need to talk to you and Yumi about something. It's important; could you meet me at the dorms during break?"

Jérémie raised his eyebrows, "Sure. But right now, we'd better get going."

I nodded, and the three started to walk off.

"Hey, wait up!!" Sissi came running past me and latched straight onto Ulrich.

"I had to talk to Ms Hertz about my last test results. They weren't very good, but it's OK now that you're here, Ulrich~ "

There were some mumbled insults from Nicolas and Hervé, now without a leader since Sissi joined our group. Ulrich shot a 'help me!' glance over his shoulder, but all I could do was laugh. Lightly, though, as I was still feeling drained. Nothing can separate Sissi from Ulrich.

Aelita cast a last worried look back at me before following the others, and I made my way slowly after them to the dorms.

--

I padded quietly along the river bank, the cool grass tickling my paw pads. I was back in my hometown, in Italy, walking near the forest opposite the all-too-familiar rushing river. A bridge closed the gap between two sides, the bridge I'd have fallen off if Adèle hadn't have saved me. The entire place was deserted save for a few birds flying overhead. Even in my current form, I didn't find them the least bit enticing.

After our first trips to Lyokô, it hadn't been uncommon for any of us to dream we're in the bodies of our subconscious desires. Our virtual manifestation must have brought that desire to the forefront, or something like that. In other words, I was now walking around as a giant purple cat. Weird, huh? But you get used to it after a while.

Although, all of us noticed their frequency was slowing reasonably since the Supercomputer was turned off. A real shame, I like these dreams.

Something lingered at the back of my mind, something dark and unidentifiable.

I dismissed it as bad memories and continued along the bank.

Cold moisture from the river sprayed lightly against my fur. One of the main reasons for liking these dreams is how real it feels. It was like you were really there, and you never forgot the dreams like you would normal ones.

I didn't feel like doing anything but wander, taking in the natural feeling of the place. After the nightmares of previous sleeps, this was a nice change. Back to the way things used to be.

Then I felt his presence.

In the blink of an eye, the river had dried up, leaving a deep trench in its place. The entire forest had burned to ash. The bridge lay as rubble. All signs of life had disappeared. The smell of smoke lingered in the air. That feeling of darkness surged until my mind was fit to burst.

I started to lose control over myself, and I struggled against some invisible force tugging at the back of my mind. In my struggles, I caught a glimpse of the fur on my paws.

It was black. Pitch black, with white patches had consumed where dark purple would usually be.

That internal force started to take hold, and darkness took over.

"NO!"

---

I jerked upright off my dorm room floor, panting and covered in sweat. Kiwi whimpered and climbed up on the bed, drawing his tongue across my cheek. I picked him up and held him, still licking my face. It was getting worse and worse. I may not be as tired as before, but that last nightmare had shook me up pretty bad.

The door creaked open and Ulrich came in followed by the others, except for Sissi. Jérémie probably got the message earlier that this was between the five of us only. Through my panic, I still couldn't help but feel sorry for her, being left out all the time.

Aelita knelt down beside me, and I realised how stupid I must have looked. As she rested her hand on my shoulder, I also noticed I was shaking uncontrollably. But that feeling of darkness still lingered. Nothing like that had ever happened to any of us, and it was scary.

I slowed my breathing, "Jérémie, we need to talk."


	5. Newcomer

"So you think that Xana is still alive?" Jérémie furrowed his brow as I finished my explanation of the nightmares, and I nodded sheepishly. It all sounded so stupid, _all_ of it.

We'd just spent the last couple of years fighting off a monotonous computer virus by being virtualised onto a virtual world whose technology was way in advance of what it should be. We'd seen this virus take control of super-important programs, and even people, just to get rid of us. Don't you think that all doesn't make a lot of sense? Why should they believe me now when I say that that virus which had set out to kill the five of us was alive again? I must sound like a lunatic, and for once I didn't want to.

"How can you be sure with a theory based on a few nightmares?"

See?

"We all have bad dreams about Xana coming back, what do you expect after what she put all of us through? It'll probably pass in a few days." Jérémie's voice was faltering slightly, as if he was trying to convince himself as well.

"But Jérémie, this felt real, like I was actually there! That only happens in one other type of dream. You all know what I'm talking about, it's not normal for nightmares!" This was so frustrating, if only Jérémie had experienced it too, then he'd agree. Trying to convince him and the others was too difficult.

Jérémie was still sceptical. Aelita had gone quiet and was now looking at the floor. Ulrich and Yumi were sitting closer together than usual, trying to take it all in.

I shook my head to clear it, "When have you ever seen behaviour like that when _anyone's_ asleep, not just me?"

Jérémie's voice went quiet, "Never."

"Then what other explanation is there?"

Aelita looked genuinely upset. She'd clenched her fists at my outburst, and was obviously finding it hard to appear calm. She must feel really messed up at the moment; Xana had imprisoned her on Lyokô, stolen her memory and used her as bait to lure out her father from the Digital Sea. Franz had sacrificed himself to destroy Xana, but now we know his sacrifice might have been in vain.

Jérémie stood. "OK, we'll turn on the Supercomputer and look for any trace of Xana. But I still think there's no point."

The rest of us stood and followed him towards the sewer entrance, Aelita lagging along behind. I'd finally persuaded him to check, but something in the back of my mind was telling me it was a bad idea.

* * *

Our skateboards were no longer at the entrance to the tunnel, so we had to go on foot. There was no real hurry, apart from the fatigue closing in on my senses again, so we walked. I screwed up my face as the smell from the water hit us on the way in. We'd all gotten used to it after going down here a few times a week, but after two months it was somewhat of a shock. Jérémie was in the lead, setting a steady pace. Ulrich and Yumi were a few paces behind, walking side-by-side. It was hard to notice, but I think they've gotten closer since Xana was 'destroyed.' Aelita was walking behind me at a slightly slower pace, so I dropped back and joined her.

"I never thought we'd have to walk this path again, Odd..." she kept her voice quiet; the acoustics in the tunnel would mean the others could easily hear our conversation at a louder sound.

"Neither did I." There wasn't really much else I could say to that.

"Was my father's sacrifice really in vain?"

I faltered, her question catching me off-guard "Well...if Xana survived, your father might have too." I shrugged, "You never know."

She sighed, hanging her head lower. "Why did she have to come back?"

"I can't answer that, I'm sorry." I reached over and took her hand, hoping that Jérémie didn't turn around any time soon. Aelita didn't seem to mind, though, as she tightened her grip on my hand slightly.

We walked in silence until we reached the other side of the sewer. I let Aelita climb up first, not because I want to look up her skirt or anything, but because I'd rather keep an eye on her in case she runs off at the last minute. Still, I waited until she'd climbed up before climbing up after her, so that Jérémie wouldn't get annoyed and think I was perving on his girlfriend.

She waited for me to close the sewer hatch before we walked towards the factory entrance, taking in old sights. The cables which led down to the next floor still hung where we left them, untouched, until Jérémie slid down the first one. The lift was also still on the top floor, waiting to be used again. Aelita paused before stepping in, and Yumi walked up beside her, placed her arm on Aelita's shoulders and gave her a reassuring smile.

I stopped and looked up at the second floor, breaking the silence. "Hey, do you ever get the feeling you're being followed?"

Ulrich shrugged. "You're just tired from before."

"But-"

"If we _are_ being followed, wouldn't it be best to get a move on before they join us?"

I nodded. As I stepped into the lift, fatigue blurred my vision and something forced my body to jerk back outside again. Ulrich and Aelita rushed forward to steady me, I could hear her talking but none of it made sense. The feeling of darkness from my dream returned and I collapsed onto the floor. My head stung, my vision was blurry and my hearing was out. The others had crowded around, trying to make sense of the situation.

It was strange, my body hurt and my senses were mucked up, but I was still thinking straight. Someone didn't want me to go down there.

"Hey! Having a party without me, are you?"

Just like that, everything returned to normal. I followed the others' gaze to none other than Sissi Delmas, striding over to where we were huddled in front of the lift.

Ulrich stood up and walked up to her, holding out his arms as if to stop her without actually making contact. "Sissi, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question, Ulrich _dear_." There was a tone of sarcasm in the word 'dear' as she strode past him and up to me.

"What happened to you?"

I kept my mouth shut.

"Why didn't you all tell me you were here? Why am I always the one being left out?"

Jérémie tried to reason with her. "Sissi, we're not doing anything important here so why don't you just go back to school and wait for us there?"

"If what you're doing is so unimportant, then why can't I join?"

Jérémie shied back, and Sissi looked around the factory. "What is this place, anyway?"

"It's an old car factory," Yumi butted in, "Nothing you'd be interested in."

"I'll have you know i plan on getting a licence when I'm old enough, so I should be thinking about getting a car."

She just doesn't give up, does she?

Yumi stood and looked her in the eye. "Sissi, will you please just go back to school?"

She backed down. "...OK. If you really don't want me here that badly, then I'll go."

"Wait, what?" Yumi had probably expected her to go on.

She turned around with a genuine look of sadness on her face. "If you must know, all I really wanted was to join your group and share that big secret you were keeping. I only did all those nasty things so you'd have to accept me. I've never really had any close friends, and I was jealous of how close you all were..." she shook her head, "I can't believe i just said that. Well, see you around at school then."

"Wait!" Everyone turned and looked at me. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea, but I felt sorry for her. "I think we should reconsider, guys."

The beginnings of a smile crossed Sissi's lips, and Aelita nodded. "It wouldn't be fair to leave her alone again like that. We can afford to take one more member, right Jérémie?" Aelita smiled at him, and he blushed slightly.

"O-O-K, I guess..."

Sissi jumped and clapped her hands, a wide grin spreading across her face. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" She ran forward and, to everyone's surprise, glomped me and not Ulrich, knocking me down against the floor again. She lowered her voice, "Thanks so much, Odd!"

"Um...you're welcome?" I could feel my cheeks getting warmer the longer she pinned me against the ground, aware of the blush spreading across my face. What was that doing there? It's just Sissi, why would _she_ make me blush? She drew back quickly and laughed.

"Hah, scared you!" What? It was a trick? That makes sense. Sort of. I couldn't think straight, I was still tired. But what I could fully understand was that, judging by the look on Jérémie's face, I'd be the one who had to explain everything to her.


	6. Xana's Return

It took half an hour just to get it into her head. _Half an hour_. We almost had to go back to school to avoid being missed for too long. Every time I explained an idea to her, she'd ask another question and I'd end up having to explain it all over again. The others didn't give any help either; they just sat and laughed. Thanks a lot, guys. By the time we were finished, I'd almost forgotten why we were even here in the first place.

"So let me get this straight: you guys used to come here all the time to fight this super-evil virus thingy called Xana..."

"Yes."

"...who was holding Aelita prisoner for 10 years on a virtual world called _Lyokô_..."

"Yes."

"...and who you thought was destroyed up until now?"

"Basically." At the rate it took her to understand that much, I wasn't willing to go any further.

"That sounds like a made up story!"

I turned, bashing my head on a nearby pole. Deliberately. Ulrich got up and walked over, taking Sissi's hand. "Look, will you believe us if we showed you?"

Her expression lightened, "I might..."

I used the pole to help myself up and followed them towards the lift. Boy am I glad that's over. The others got up and joined us, Jérémie pressing the up button on the controls. The door whirred shut in front of us and the lift shuddered before beginning its descent. I was feeling kind of ambiguous about what we were about to do; I missed coming down here, entering the virtual world and saving ours, even if no-one would ever find out. But there was still that lingering fatigue reminding me that those dreams weren't just my subconscious playing tricks on me.

I glanced at the others, observing much the same reaction, except for Aelita. She was trembling slightly and wore a look of distress. It was obvious she was trying to hide it but wasn't doing a very good job. Jérémie turned and took her hand, and she gave him a small smile and edged closer.

Sissi, on the other hand, was ecstatic. Self appearance was probably the only thing stopping her from jumping up and down with joy.

"I can't believe it; I'm finally going to be part of this big secret of yours!"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I had to suppress a smile at her comment. Although, after knowing what she had really wanted that whole time, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

Jérémie opened the panel on the lift controls to reveal a keypad, typing in a code to take us to the bottom floor. It was at least a forty-metre drop from the factory floor, taking a couple of minutes to reach our stop.

The lift door opened to show another door on the inside: a complicated hydraulics system that hissed as it parted to reveal the Supercomputer room. Jérémie led us into the room, Aelita still holding his hand. The Supercomputer itself was in a pool of water in the centre of the room, elevating as we approached, despite the power having been cut.

The only sound was a gasp of awe from Sissi, otherwise the silence was deafening. I spoke up, "Must be on standby."

Ulrich shot a glance at me, but instead of the usual berating, he gave me a half-smile. I wasn't the only one feeling nervous.

Yumi sighed, "Jérémie, I think you should do the honours."

He nodded, letting go of Aelita's hand and stepping closer to the Supercomputer. The on switch flipped forward, and he paused before taking it. I felt my pulse quicken unnaturally fast. Jérémie turned and looked over us, "Ready?"

One by one we nodded in turn, Aelita and me being the only ones to hesitate. Part of me didn't want it to be turned back on, but if it was the only way to find out what was happening to me...

Jérémie nodded and turned back to the Supercomputer, pushing the switch down. The entire machine lit up with a blinding light, sending a gust of wind at us as it started up. At this point my heart was racing, from both excitement and fear, as a black figure formed in front of the Supercomputer, followed by the eerie laughter of an unfamiliar female voice.

"NO!" I clapped my hands over my mouth, I hadn't said that, it was _him_. The one from my dreams. I could sense his presence clearly now, as if he were standing behind me.

As the black figure took shape, Sissi screamed and dove behind Ulrich. More and more details came into view until I was staring at Xana, personified in a humanoid form, and she was laughing. Long, black hair reached down past her shoulders, two bangs hanging over her chest and covering her ears. She wore a full-body suit coloured black and grey with shoulder and elbow pads, and crimson bangles around her wrists. A bandolier with purple and blue pockets was attached to her belt: black and purple cloth secured with a red Xana eye. A devil-like tail reached down to her ankles, decorated near the tip with two red bangles.

She stopped laughing, and opened her eye. One half of her face was black like her suit, with a red Xana eye instead of a human one. The other side was skin colour with a red stripe on the cheek. Her eyes were a nasty blood red. She turned and looked right through me, and I flinched.

"Too late, kitty-cat!" she lifted her head to the ceiling and exclaimed, "I'm free again!"

Fatigue started to take hold by the second, and my vision was going blurry. I sensed him get worried, then vanish without a trace.

Xana turned to Jérémie, who had backed up to stand with the rest of us, and was now trembling like heck. "I thank you for freeing me, Jérémie. You've done me a great service." She accompanied her last sentence with a mock bow.

Ulrich and Yumi stepped forward, taking battle stances. Sissi clung onto the back of my shirt, whimpering. Yumi challenged Xana, "How did you escape? We got rid of you a couple of months ago!"

"You'll have to find that out yourself, my dear Yumi. I've got better things to do than explain myself to a bunch of kids."

Jérémie stepped forward, his voice stuttering greatly, "Oh yeah? Well us 'bunch of kids' managed to foil your plans countless times!"

Xana leaned in towards Jérémie's face, forcing the boy to back up against a wall, "Maybe so, but this time I won't give you the chance."

She stood back, approaching Aelita, who was now in tears. "Hmm, what a pity. Your father sacrificed himself for nothing." She grinned at the pink-haired girl before facing Ulrich and Yumi, who were blocking the lift. I wanted to race forward and comfort her as Jérémie was still in shock against the wall, but both Sissi, now in tears, and my own fear were holding me back. Xana simply ghosted through the two martial arts students, taking the form of an average spectre, and floated across the room towards me.

She ran her fingers along my cheek, and under my chin. "There's nothing you can do to stop me now."

All that was heard as she disappeared through the ceiling was maniacal laughter echoing around the room.


	7. Changing Feelings

I didn't sleep much that night. For the couple of hours I did sleep, it was horrible and dreamless. I was awake until early morning, staring at the ceiling and replaying the day's events over and over in my head. After Xana's escape Aelita had broke down completely. She'd fallen on her knees and buried her head in her hands and almost choked on her own tears. Yumi and Jérémie rushed to her side immediately. Jérémie's words still echoed in my head, sharp and menacing, "This is all your fault."

So I lay in bed, not managing to sleep. Kiwi was lying by my leg asleep. I think Ulrich was asleep too, but he was tossing and turning every now and again. It was probably a good thing that I got those days off school to catch up on sleep, now I was going to need them. After a few hours of lying awake, Kiwi jumped up and started barking at something.

"Shh, Kiwi or Jim will hear you."

He was looking off to a corner of my room. I followed his gaze and recognised my other self sitting cross-legged on the table looking out the window. He was still transparent, not even casting a shadow. Kiwi jumped down off the bed and padded over to the desk, jumping up beside him. He glanced down at Kiwi and pulled his hand away before the little dog could try and nuzzle him. I doubt it would've worked. As Kiwi lay down on the table my other self fixed his gaze on me.

Instantly I felt like all the guilt I'd felt earlier had vanished, and Jérémie's words became a distant memory. I knew what had happened. He was saying he was the guilty one and not me. Although we're technically the same person. I still don't get _what_ he is exactly. It can't be the fatigue making me see things because it only started after I saw him. What could it be, then?

My arm gave way underneath me suddenly as I felt myself drifting off, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

_

* * *

_

"Good morning and it's 7:00 Wednesday morning on SkyRadio. I'm talking, talking, talking, as usual to start your day with one of the Subdigital's newest hits!"

I pulled my pillow over my head as Technoïde started playing over the radio. Normally I'd be straight up out of bed, but today I was just too tired. I heard Ulrich get up slowly and turn off the radio.

"How are you feeling?"

"Mm..." Too tired to give a decent reply.

"I don't blame you for yesterday, by the way." Ulrich opened his cupboard and retrieved his clothes.

I lifted my head, giving him a funny look, "Really?"

"Really. You couldn't have known what would have happened. I just wish we knew what was going on..."

"I think it's a good thing I don't have to get up today—"

"Lucky. We've got double maths first thing!"

I smiled, "I won't have to face Jérémie for a while. He'd probably give me a tongue lashing at first sight after what happened with Aelita."

"Yeah, good point." Walking towards the door, Ulrich added teasingly, "You sure you'll be fine on your own all day?"

"Of course."

"Sure, sure. See you later, good buddy."

As the door clicked shut behind him, I buried my head in my pillow again. Kiwi padded up from behind me and ran his tongue over my ear, leaving behind a large streak of dog saliva. I wiped it off with one hand while holding him back with the other, only to have that hand covered in spit as well. Giving up, I turned onto my side and ran my fingers over his short fur. Now subdued, he curled up against my chest and closed his eyes.

I sighed, "You don't have to put up with problems like these, you lucky thing."

I didn't get more than a low bark in response. After a few minutes Kiwi started twitching as he chased cats in his doggy dreams.

A lot of people would think it weird that a cat owned a dog, but I don't really care.

I heard a knock at the door. "Hm?"

Needless to say I was surprised when Aelita stepped through the doorway. I propped myself up on my elbow.

"Something wrong?"

She sat down on the bed. "I just wanted to see if you're OK after yesterday."

"I'd be more worried about you."

Aelita reached out and stroked Kiwi's fur. "I...I don't think you should take what Jérémie said to heart. It was pretty harsh, but I don't think he meant it. I think he was just upset about how I reacted."

"That's understandable."

"Hm?"

"He loves you, Aelita. He just overreacted like any other super nerd would do when their girlfriend was in trouble. He's got this really weird attitude towards girls, you know?"

"I know." She said, the beginnings of a blush creeping across her cheeks. She smiled suddenly, "Although you're not really one to talk."

"Hey, you!" I gave her a light punch on the shoulder, "Admit it, no girl can resist my charm!"

"Including Sissi?"

Now it was my turn to blush. "What?"

"You know what I mean. What happened yesterday, at the factory? Remember that?"

"She said she was kidding!"

Aelita shook her head and laughed, "You really are clueless, aren't you?"

I'm pretty sure Aelita's convinced Sissi has a thing for me. "Tch, she doesn't have a thing for me, she's after Ulrich!"

Aelita continued laughing, a little softer this time.

What if she's right and Sissi _does_ have a crush on me? Once again I was forced into the awkward position of questioning my true feelings for her. She's a mean, selfish brat who would do just about anything to win Ulrich's heart. Right? The more I think about it, the more I realise she's changed. She's not like that anymore. Maybe she was telling the truth yesterday about doing all those mean things to get into the group. Although it pretty much had the opposite effect.

I don't know, this is all so confusing...

"Well I have to go to class now." Aelita's voice brought me back to reality.

"OK, have fun in maths."

Aelita smiled, "I hope you feel better soon."

Once again, the door clicked shut, leaving me alone with Kiwi. Oh, and don't forget my bed. Speaking of which, I was still tired. Resting my head on the pillow, I managed to get to sleep quicker than last night, my thoughts filled with images of Sissi.


	8. Back to Lyokô

"_At first I thought all of this was made up...but when Xana was released it felt so real. Now I don't know what to think. I'm so confused, Odd._"

Sissi? What's she doing here?

"_I really wonder what's wrong with you, and...I hope you get well soon._"

I decided to pretend to stay asleep so as not to scare her. She sat on the side of the bed and sighed.

"When I wanted to join your group, this isn't what I had in mind at all. But I guess it's worth it just to have real friends. I-"

Her sentence was cut off by a vibrating in her pocket.

"Hello, Ulrich?"

"A Xana attack?"

"Ok, I'll get him."

She got up and opened and closed the door gently, probably to make me think she had just come in. She placed her hand on my shoulder and shook gently, "Odd, wake up."

I sat up acting groggy, "Hm?"

"Xana's attacking and the others need you."

"Ok. Just let me get dressed and I'll be right out."

Sissi nodded and headed for the door, shutting it behind her.

Had she just skipped class to come talk to me while I was asleep? I checked my watch as I slipped it on, 1:24, middle of lunch time. The others were probably in the cafeteria. So she skipped lunch; not as bad as classes. To some people, at least. I'd rather skip classes than lunch.

Speaking of which, I hadn't eaten since last night and my stomach was growling in protest. I shook my head.

"No time for food now, got to get to Lyokô!"

Now dressed, I strode over to the door and locked it on my way out, stuffing the key in my pocket and then turning to Sissi who was waiting beside the door frame, "Ready to go?"

"Yes."

I'd slept off most of my sleepiness during the last few hours, so we set off at a run to the manhole in the woods and climbed down the ladder, checking for anyone who might be watching first. Our skateboards, including a new one for Sissi, had been left at the bottom. It felt a lot better than the last trip; the wind rushing past and the speeds reached as we headed to the factory added more thrill to the trip. Now it really felt like old times. I led the way with Sissi not far behind. I also tried to avoid any big jumps in case she fell off. Always remember to wear a helmet, kids! And definitely don't try this at home.

Finally up the last ladder, it was a short run and a rope swing to the lift, which took us down to the lab. Jérémie was already there waiting.

"Good, you're here. Xana has activated a Tower in the Forest Sector."

"Do we have any idea about what kind of attack it is?"

"No, still no signs yet. It's strange..."

"What?"

"If Xana's here on Earth, why would she need to activate a Tower to attack us?"

"Good question." Only one thought came to mind, "What if she needs it to attack us on Lyokô?"

Jérémie adjusted his glasses, "But why would she want to do that?"

"Revenge, probably."

"Or maybe she knows we'd get in the way of her future plans...Oh well. We'll figure it out later. For now, you should get down to the scanner room."

I nodded, pressing the button on the lift controls. Sissi had walked into the lab and stood beside Jérémie as we talked.

I felt ecstatic as the lift made its way down to the second floor. I don't know why Jéré never wanted to come to Lyokô; it was fun fighting against Xana's monsters, and we all – well, most of us – had super powers. But I guess super nerd just wants to stay cooped up in his little computer lab and type away at the controls. Then again, he might just be embarrassed about his appearance or something. Which is silly, nobody really cares about how weird the others may look. I think his attire suited him.

The lift shuddered as it reached the scanner room, its two sets of doors opening one after the other to reveal the three scanners in the centre. Jérémie's voice sounded over the intercom, "_The others are already there. I'm starting the procedure._"

I stepped into the closest scanner, turning to face the door.

"_Transfer: Odd._"

The scanner shut and a ring above my head glowed white.

"_Scanner: Odd._"

The ring descended slowly, scanning. I closed my eyes.

"_Virtualisation._"

Virtualisation is a strange process. First a gust of wind blows up from the bottom of the scanner before you lose consciousness as you're sent to Lyokô. Jérémie says that during this time, your molecular structure is analysed and broken down into atoms before being digitalised. The atoms are then reassembled as your virtual incarnation. Or something like that, I don't really get what it all means.

Anyway, you regain consciousness just as the colours and details are digitalised onto the frame of your virtual body, just before dropping onto the ground.

Ulrich turned to face me, "You sure took your time."

"I'm still tired, ok?" Actually, now that I was on Lyokô I felt like all my energy had been restored. It was always like this, but it's never a good idea to abuse your immunity to fatigue; if you're devirtualised, you'll feel completely drained.

"_The Tower you're looking for is about 100 metres east of your position._"

We all looked up at the sky to listen to Jérémie's brief. He himself wasn't up there, of course, we'd all just adopted the habit of looking up there to listen. It seemed more appropriate than looking at a rock or a tree or whatnot.

Yumi frowned. "Couldn't you have virtualised us a little closer to the Tower?"

"_I figured you'd want to have a little warm-up before charging into battle. I'm sending your vehicles._"

Jérémie had designed the vehicles as a way to easily traverse through the virtual world. All three of them materialised at our feet.

Yumi had the Overwing, a sort of flying scooter. It had a plain grey colour with a red sphere at the front. A little dull in my opinion, but given Yumi's wardrobe of all-black clothing I guess it doesn't really matter to her.

The Overbike, a green one-wheeled motorbike, belonged to Ulrich. It's built for both ground and air travel, when the user wants to fly the wheel moves up into the frame and the bike is airborne. Its large size also makes it good for smashing into monsters, after jumping off.

And last but definitely not least was my vehicle, the Overboard. It looked like a surfboard, or a skateboard without the wheels, and flying capabilities. While the other two vehicles were large and offered good protection against lasers, anyone piloting the Overboard had to have good balance or face the risk of falling off. And that didn't only apply while dodging attacks, but also when simply moving around the territory. It was ok for me since I had the best control over my balance than anyone else in the group, but if someone else needed to use the Overboard it was easier with someone backing. Aelita is the only other who can easily use the Overboard without falling off.

Speaking of Aelita, she generally backs with mostly Yumi or myself. Today she went with Yumi. When Jérémie upgraded our gear, he also equipped her with angel wings activated by a waving her hand over a sensor on her wrist. Of course Jérémie would make Aelita his angel, that boy's got it bad for the Princess.

I glanced over at Ulrich as we made our way to the Tower. Now I think I know why we were virtualised so far away, "Race you?"

He smirked, "Like I'd ever pass up a chance to beat you again!"

We revved up our engines and zoomed off through the trees. Ok, I admit I've had a pretty long losing streak against Ulrich, but I felt pretty good about today. After days of thinking about my previous strategies, I figured out that most of my losses came after I goofed off. Why not? It was more fun than just heading in a straight line. Even though, I decided to test my theory out and stuck to the path.

Ulrich obviously noticed, as he turned and asked, "No crazy stunts today?"

"You'll see." I wasn't going to give anything away.

I really missed this! It was hundreds of times better than the ride through the sewer, especially with competition. I glanced back to look for the girls, but they were far behind by now. I turned back just in time to receive a laser to the chest, being knocked off toward the Digital Sea. The Overboard flew back down and caught me a couple of metres above the surface. I came back up to the path, "Phew, that was too close for comfort."

The Digital Sea was made up of randomly oscillating data, taking the form of a sea like on Earth. Falling into it would result in being lost in its depths for good; unless Jérémie managed to fish you back out again with some sort of program.

The effects of the laser shot weren't very serious, though. They were simply a slight sting and blue electric-looking effect in the area that was hit, and a loss of a few life points.

Surrounding the Tower were four Tarantulas and two Krabes.

"Call it a draw?"

"Ok."

I split off from Ulrich and proceeded to fly between trees avoiding the monsters' lasers. Once in a more clear area, I lifted up my arm and aimed below the Eye of Xana on a tarantula's head, "Laser arrow!" Bang on target, the arrow connected right in the centre of the Eye and the Tarantula struggled slightly before exploding. I still hadn't lost my touch!

Meanwhile, Ulrich had piloted the Overbike toward a Krabe and jumped on top of it, pulling out his dual blades, "Impact!" The two swords met in the centre of the Eye, piercing the Krabe's shell. Ulrich jumped off and onto the ground, heading for the other Krabe as the first blew up.

The familiar hum of the Overwing sounded off to one side, signalling the arrival of Aelita and Yumi. Yumi pulled out one of her fans and threw it at the Tarantulas, slicing off the heads of two of them. Aelita held out her hand and summoned her attack, "Energy field!" It connected with the last Tarantula; all that was left was the last Krabe.

Ulrich had used Triangulate to surround the Krabe as it looked for which one to fire at. Just for fun, I decided to steal his thunder.

"Laser arrow!" I fired three shots, all hitting the Krabe's weak spot. Ulrich stopped running as it was blown up.

"Hey! That was my kill!" Despite the fact that he'd stopped running, there now stood three Ulrichs where there should have been one. I confess it does get a little disconcerting at times.

I laughed, "You took too long with it, I got bored."

All three of the Ulrichs frowned, before the main one said, "Fusion" bringing them all back into one body again.

Jérémie's voice sounded again, "_Great job, guys! Get to the Tower, Aelita._"

I stepped off the Overboard, "Oh, hi, Jérémie. I thought you were asleep."

Yumi had that look on her face. I really don't like that look, because whenever she gets it her next sentence is always right, "That was too easy. Xana must be up to something."

I sighed, "What if she's just doing things gradually?"

Ulrich nodded, "Yeah, why don't you just appreciate a small attack for once?"

She shook her head and looked towards the Tower, whose colour changed from red back to blue as Aelita entered the code Lyokô. Xana's attack was neutralised and the threat was over. But we hadn't felt any signs of an attack. What if Yumi was right again? What kind of attack was it?


	9. Traitor Amongst Us

I exited the lift alongside Ulrich, Yumi and Aelita feeling overly energetic. A short glance at the others confirmed they were feeling the same way. Yumi and Ulrich were both wearing broad smiles on their faces. Aelita was smiling also, but a smaller one. I can't blame her; our return to Lyokô in these circumstances wasn't really something to celebrate. Still, I was feeling pretty pumped.

We were greeted in the lab by Jérémie and an awestruck Sissi. She was watching the computer screen with her mouth partway open, receiving a strange look from Jérémie. I elbowed her gently, "Still think it's a made-up story?"

"Y-you were in the computer! You were really there! How is that possible?"

I shook my head, glancing at Jérémie. He adjusted his glasses, "I'll try and explain later. For now I'm more concerned about _why_ they were in the computer."

Good question. Not in the sense of why it was us specifically deactivating the towers, but why Xana was activating them.

Yumi frowned, "Did you find out anything about why Xana returned?"

Jéré nodded, "Take a look at this."

He swivelled around in his chair and we all stood around to see. He opened up the footage from the security cameras in the Supercomputer room, rewinding until he reached a certain point. Most of the footage was of the Supercomputer sitting dormant, but there was a blur of a figure moving around just before Jérémie stopped.

"This is the security footage from two weeks after we initially destroyed Xana." He bowed his head, restarting the tape.

Through the audio we heard the lift stop, doors opening to let out a familiar face, one we all knew well.

"William?"

The black-haired boy walked up to the computer and started talking to himself, "Okay, Xana. I'm here."

He exclaimed in shock as a black spectre shape formed around his body and dove at the Supercomputer. Collapsing onto his hands and knees, he looked up slowly as a voice sounded from the computer, "Thank you, William. You have done me a great service." The voice was Xana's.

"Great," he gasped, "Now please, keep our deal! I take you here and don't tell them anything, and you set me free!"

"We'll see."

"What?"

"You have been of excellent service to me over the past months, William. I'm not going to let someone as loyal as you go so quickly."

"No…please!" he stood and started backing toward the lift.

"Plus, I can personally make sure you don't breathe a word about this!"

William was about to reach the lift when the doors closed shut behind him.

Xana tutted, "Nuh-uh, you're not getting out of this one so easily."

Another spectre was produced from the Supercomputer, aiming for William. He attempted to shield himself by holding his arms in front of his face, but it was in vain. Xana's spectre enveloped and possessed him, forcing the boy to fall once again to his knees.

"Welcome back."

William stood up, bending over again in a bow, "Pleased to be back at your service, Master."

Jérémie stopped the video, "That's it."

Yumi shook her head in disbelief, "But how did Xana even survive in the first place? I saw the spectre disappear with my own two eyes!"

Jérémie contemplated this, "Well…I've thought about that. I've only been able to come up with one way."

Ulrich stepped back, "What is it?"

"The human brain is the strongest bio-computer in the universe. Human memory works in much the same way as computer memory; computers have RAM, Random Access Memory, which is like our consciousness. The other type is ROM, Read-Only Memory, like our subconscious. It's possible that Xana was able to store herself in William's subconscious memory so she could recover. She must've then sent William to the Supercomputer, transferred herself back into it and fully recovered there."

I rolled my eyes, "Makes sense."

"In English?" Ulrich asked.

"She stored herself in Williams' mind and then returned to the Supercomputer when we thought everything was quiet."

"Ah."

It was kind of annoying when Jérémie would talk in techno-geek language; Aelita was the only other one who could understand him most of the time. I find it strange that it would make sense to anyone at all.

"I feel sorry for William. It looked like Xana was torturing him or something."

Yumi looked upset. I noticed Ulrich hang his head slightly upon looking at her.

"What's wrong, good buddy? I thought you didn't get along that well with William."

He avoided Yumi's surprised glance and looked straight at me, "I'll tell you later."

Jérémie shook his head, "Well it looks like we're just going to have to resume our duties as Lyokô Warriors and start saving the world again." There was a hint of a laugh in his voice.

I smiled, "We're back in business again!"

Aelita smiled at my enthusiasm. It's great to know she can relax in a time like this after all the stress she's been through.

Yumi sighed, "I still wonder what that attack was, exactly."

Silent Xana attacks were most often the deadliest. Sometimes she'd bug up the virtualisation program so we couldn't be devirtualised, or bug up our avatars and render us unable to do anything but exist. Those times were really frustrating.

I yawned, feeling my energy start to disappear again, "Jérémie will figure it out later. He's a genius. For now, I think we should hit the hay."

Jérémie laughed, checking his watch, "He's right, we should go before we're missed."

We all walked back into the lift, leaving the lab behind.

Sissi stood beside the wall, her eyes glazed over as if she was in her own little world. She'd been abnormally quiet during the past few minutes; maybe I should leave her for now and see if she can sort it out herself.

* * *

I plonked down on my bed beside Kiwi, yawning again. Just as I was about to settle down, a thought occurred, "Hey, Ulrich?"

"Hm?"

"What was that you were going to tell me earlier?"

"Drat, I thought you'd forgotten…"

"Nope!"

"Okay, fine. I…I thought that…maybe now that Xana was out of the way, I'd have more time to be with Yumi. We could've gotten back together, but now…"

"Hey, there's still hope! Wasn't Xana the thing that brought you together in the first place?"

"Sort of, I guess…"

"Never give up on her, Ulrich. 'Kay?"

He smiled, "Okay. Now go to sleep!"

"All right."

I rolled over, facing the wall. Ulrich and Yumi's relationship had been pretty rocky of late. For both their sakes, I hope they'll get back together soon.


	10. Confrontation

I turned off the shower and began to towel myself off. I'd woken up this morning to Kiwi licking my face. Ulrich was out of bed, but he didn't talk to me. He was probably still upset about what's happening – or rather, not happening – with Yumi. I'd decided to try going to class today to see how I fared when I was still tired. For once I didn't feel like sleeping for the whole day. As much as I hate to admit it, it gets kind of boring after a while.

Tying the towel around my waist, I headed back to our room to get dressed.

I don't envy Ulrich; he and Yumi had been up and down ever since they met. I'd never be able to stand a relationship like that. They always claim they're not going out together, but they both show serious signs that they want to. And then came along William, making everything between them even more complicated. Ulrich had often asked me if Yumi liked William, even every time I'd told him no. After how he acted on his first trip to Lyokô, I've started to think he doesn't really deserve someone like Yumi.

Finally ready for the day, I bade goodbye to Kiwi and opened the door. Speak of the devil; William was standing on the other side.

He had a smirk on his face, "So you and the others finally found out."

I frowned, "Why did you do that? You swore to _protect_ the world from Xana, not put it in even more danger!"

His grin dropped immediately, and he hoisted me up against a nearby wall by my shirt collar, "Do you have any idea how much she tortured me? Every day all I heard was her voice, begging me to take her back to the Supercomputer!"

"Why didn't you just tell us? We could've helped."

"No! She would've done worse things if I'd have told you. The only way I can truly be free is to help her destroy the five of you!"

William drew back his fist ready to punch me. I struggled out of his grip and stepped a few metres back down the hallway. His fist smashed a dent in the wall, scraps of paint falling onto the floor as he withdrew this arm. Any later and that would've been my head.

His smirk returned, "It's such a shame…that kitty-cat tried to warn you but you took it the wrong way. You could've stopped it, but now Xana is free again!"

He raised both his arms, purple electricity forming around his wrists and moving to his hands. I turned and pelted towards the stairwell, jumping to one side as a blot of electricity streaked past me. Dismissing the idea of jumping to the ground floor, I seriously regretted taking the stairs down when William disintegrated into a spectre and rematerialised in front of me. He advanced back up the stairs, his form occasionally going fuzzy as if it were struggling to keep in one piece. The eye of Xana had replaced his pupils.

"Dunbar! How nice to see you this morning!"

I breathed a sigh of relief as Mr Delmas strode up to the bottom of the staircase.

William scowled at me before turning to the principal with a bored look on his face, "What is it, Sir?"

"I need to speak to you about something, could you come with me to my office for a few minutes?"

"Sure."

Delmas nodded at me, "Della Robbia." I nodded back.

William cast one more look back at me as he followed after him, as if to say "You were lucky this time."

I waited a minute before leaving the building, still taking a minute to catch my breath.

I went to find the others who were sitting at our usual bench. Yumi was there too. Ulrich still had a gloomy look on his face.

Aelita turned and greeted me with a smile, "Good morning, Odd!"

I smiled back, and she continued, "You decided to come down today?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better now. But something happened this morning that I think you should hear about."

I cast a look at Jérémie, who still appeared to be ignoring me. He looked up from his laptop when I said, "It concerns William."

"Didn't we agree we wouldn't talk to him until we were all together?"

"Yes, but he confronted me first."

Yumi responded, much to Ulrich's misfortune, "What happened?"

"He attacked me at my dorm room, and he caused a fair bit of damage to the walls. Mr Delmas asked to see him before he could hurt me, though."

Sissi looked upset, "Oh, are you ok?"

"Um…yeah I just said I was."

"Oh…right. Sorry."

We were interrupted by the bell signalling the beginning of first period. Yumi got up first, "We'll discuss this at break, and I'll keep away from William until then. See you guys later."

Her movements were closely followed by Ulrich, who couldn't take his eyes off her until she disappeared around the corner. I poked him in the shoulder, "Earth to Ulrich?"

He jumped to attention, "Huh? What?"  
"Were you just listening to that conversation at all?"

"What conversation?"

"I'll take that as a no."

He got up and followed Aelita and Jérémie as they headed to class, leaving me and Sissi behind. She walked up to me, staying quiet. That's so unlike her.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head, "It's just…you're all putting your lives in such great danger for the sake of everyone else."

I started walking, Sissi following, "Yeah, isn't that what superheroes do?"

She stayed quiet.

"We're used to it now."

She stopped, "But think about all the things you've been through! Being possessed, Aelita's memory being stolen, the nuclear disaster threat, body swapping…"

"Ok, I get the point. I admit it has been pretty tough at times." Yumi and I had sworn to each other that we wouldn't discuss that certain event again. On that topic, I just want to clarify that when I told Ulrich "Now I know why Sissi's so crazy about you!" after hugging him, it was a **joke**. I didn't really mean it. Although I'm not quite sure whether that message got through to him or not.

Sissi bowed her head and continued walking.

I don't blame her for feeling scared. All of us were when we first got into this, but I guess being able to go to Lyokô and fight helped us to get over it quickly. Sissi has never been to Lyokô, so she doesn't know how exhilarating it can get.

Thinking of this makes me think we're forgetting something, but I can't place what…

We walked the rest of the way in silence, dawdling until we reached the classroom. Nobody was there.

"Did we go to the wrong room?"

"No, we're always here for English."

I checked the board; no message was left telling us where the class went, "We must've gotten here too late. We should probably go look for the others."

Sissi nodded, turning back towards the door. It was then I noticed one of the electric outlets on the wall had been scorched black. My phone rumbled in my pocket.

Jérémie was on the other end, at least he was talking to me again, "_Odd, where are you? Xana's activated a Tower._"

"I know." I turned around, recognising the familiar eye of Xana in front of me, "She's possessed Sissi."


	11. Sissi Gets Virtualised

Sissi stood in front of me, a familiar maniacal grin on her face, and the eye of Xana in her eyes. I backed up a couple of paces. She was blocking the door, but I might be able to get out a window.

Jérémie continued our conversation on his side of the phone, "_Oh, great. Do you think you can keep her busy until we deactivate the tower?_"

"Uh…yeah, sure."

It was then I realised what we'd forgotten to do. But it was too late; Jérémie had already hung up.

I returned my phone to my pocket, "Well it looks like it's just you and me now, Sissi."

She seemed to have been waiting while I talked to Jérémie, "Wow, I never knew you were so polite as to let us finish talking."

Sissi leapt forward, electricity sparking in the palms of her hands. I dropped and rolled out of the way, aiming for the door. Multiple bolts of electricity barely missed me as I ran outside. She raced after me with spectral speed, easily catching up to and tackling me to the ground. I managed to scramble out of her grip before her electric fist could connect, feeling my hair stand up as if I were standing near a recently turned-off television.

I stood up, having to immediately start dodging blows from my assailant. I tried letting her hit my arm instead of my stomach, but I ended up with an incredibly sore arm which then got pushed into my chest. I didn't want to fight back, I could hurt Sissi.

Realising we were now fighting in the quad for all to see, thankfully everyone was in class, I made a mad dash for the forest where it'd be easier to defend and keep both of us hidden.

I jumped up the trunk of the first tree and climbed up to a branch as Sissi tried to grab me, missing by a hair. She looked up, glaring at me. She was going to follow me up here. I jumped to the next tree, moving from branch to branch to try and get away. As I'd predicted, Sissi jumped straight up to the first branch and proceeded to follow me through the trees.

If I got knocked down from here, it would hurt. It was almost a 10 metre drop to the ground, even if I did manage to stick the landing it'd still sting. I continued through the trees, occasionally changing directions to dodge punches or lightning bolts. Eventually she decided to change tactic, throwing a fake punch in one direction and catching me out in the other, grabbing me and pulling me to the ground.

She used me like a pillow, so I took the full force of the fall and her weight as she fell on top of me. Normally I would've made a quip about how heavy she was, but I was struggling to regain my breath after being winded from the fall.

Sissi stood back up, aiming a normal punch for my head. All I could do was cringe.

A moment passed before she suddenly dropped onto her knees, confusion on her face. Aelita must have deactivated the tower.

"Just in time."

I caught Sissi as she almost fell onto her face, pulling my phone out again, "Great timing, Jéré."

Jérémie sounded flustered on the other end, "_Xana sent us a lot of monsters to deal with this time. She really put up a fight._"

I picked Sissi up, "I'm going to bring Sissi to the factory. We need to virtualise her, or Xana will do this again."

"_Right. I'll tell the others. Oh, and you should probably wake her up before we send her to Lyokô. Wouldn't want to scare her!_"

The walk to the factory was difficult with an unconscious Sissi in my arms. I couldn't carry her on my back because she was too tall. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the shortest person in my year. I really could use a growth spurt sometime soon.

Still, I made it there eventually. Jérémie and Ulrich were waiting in the lab. Only then did Sissi wake up.

"You couldn't have woken up before I had to carry you all the way here?"

"Hm? What's going on? What happened?"

Ulrich answered for her, "You were possessed by Xana. She made you attack Odd."

This certainly doesn't help the outcome of the conversation we were having earlier. She suddenly looked worried, "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

I shook my head, "It's not your fault."

"But," Jérémie kicked in, "you now need to be sent to Lyokô to prevent it from happening again."

Now she looked really worried, "What? I can't go to Lyokô! I have no idea what I'm doing, I-"

I stopped her, "If you don't, Xana could possess you and you could hurt more people. It's either a one-off trip to Lyokô or a lifetime of being a major target for Xana."

She bowed her head, thinking about her options. Suddenly she reached out and hit the up button on the lift, bringing us down to the scanner room. I hadn't had a chance to get out at the lab. I helped her up off the floor as the lift reached its destination. She looked really upset, "Is it scary on Lyokô?"

"Not really. Yumi and Aelita will be there for you, nothing to worry about."

"What if I'm attacked by monsters and they're not around?"

"The devirtualisation is safe; you'll be home in no time."

"O-ok."

She walked towards one of the scanners, turning around all of a sudden, "Aren't you coming with me?"

Ulrich's voice sounded over the speakers, "_He saw Jérémie on Lyokô and the girls didn't._"

Jérémie joined in, "_We think the girls should have a moment on Lyokô without us._"

I nodded, "Also I'd feel pretty uncomfortable being the only guy in amongst all of you girls."

Sissi laughed, "Ok, I'll see you later then!"

She stepped into the nearest scanner, turning around as the doors closed behind her.

The machine hummed to life and Jérémie spoke over the intercom, "_Transfer: Sissi. Scanner: Sissi. Virtualisation._"

I turned and climbed up the ladder into the lab. Ulrich was leaning against the wall nearby, "You aren't embarrassed about her seeing you with a tail, are you?"

"What? No. It doesn't bother me at all anymore."

"Sure…"

"I'll have you know I'm actually annoyed about being left out again."

"Of course. And by that you mean you're upset about not being able to see Sissi in skin-tight spandex."

"Wha-"

Jérémie interrupted, "Actually she's not wearing anything like that; I gave you that upgrade, remember?"

Ulrich and I both stared at him until he turned around, his glasses slipping down his nose, "What?"

Ulrich raised one eyebrow, "You gave Aelita a see-through skirt."

"I-I ah-um…" Jéré's cheeks started turning pink.

I shook my head. I'd always thought that was some sort of lovesick-Jérémie thing. Nobody had really talked about it. Aelita didn't really seem to mind, surprisingly.

With Jérémie silenced, Ulrich continued, "Sissi likes you, you know."

"No she doesn't."

"Yes she does."

"She doesn't."

"You're right – why should she?"

"Hey!"

This conversation continued for the next few minutes, eventually ending when the girls returned in the lift. I slapped my hand over Ulrich's mouth.

Yumi gave us a weird look, "What were you talking about?"

I smiled, "Nothing."

She shook her head, walking over to Jérémie. Sissi looked happier than I expected, "That was actually pretty fun!"

"See? I told you it would be."

Jérémie nodded, "Now Xana can't possess you."

Ulrich then took this time while I was distracted to bite the hand stopping him from speaking.

I jumped back and yelled in protest, holding my sore hand. We received another strange look from the girls and an annoyed one from Jérémie. Ulrich grinned.

I shook my head to clear it, "Jérémie, I'm not sure if people saw us or not earlier. Should we launch a Return to the Past?"

Jérémie contemplated my suggestion, eventually nodding, "It's for the best."

He turned back to his monitors and started up the program. He looked more thrilled than usual as he prepared to recite his usual line.

Sissi turned to Aelita, "Is this how we go back in time?"

"It sure is."

"How will we remember what happened?"

Yumi put her arm around her shoulder, "The computer will remember you since you've been scanned."

Jérémie grinned, "Ready?"

We all nodded.

"Return to the past, now!"


	12. Whispers of Doubt

After the familiar white glow of the return trip receded, I found myself walking beside Sissi on the way to class again. Thankfully this time we wouldn't be interrupted by Xana. I'm not saying I wanted alone time with her or anything, it'd just be better for her nerves.

She looked exhilarated, "Wow! We really did go back in time!"

"Yeah, but keep it down, ok? We don't want other people to know."

She quietened her voice and smiled, "Ok."

English was uneventful. The main reason I'd decided to come to class today was so I didn't fall too far behind with study. We had tests in numerous subjects coming up, so it wouldn't be a good idea to fall behind. I wasn't half bad at English, actually. My parents travel a lot, so I sort of picked it up from them. It does get difficult as a second – or rather, third – language, though. It's too complicated.

After a couple more classes it was lunch time. I walked with the others to the cafeteria, the smell of meatballs and gravy wafting out the windows towards us. My stomach growled.

Then it hit me, "I haven't eaten in several days."

"Tch," Ulrich scoffed, "You only just noticed?"

"No wonder you're so exhausted; you're not getting enough energy." Jéré adjusted his glasses.

I shrugged, "I guess I was too tired to pay any attention to it."

Aelita giggled, "You guys go on ahead. I'm going to wait for Yumi."

Jérémie looked concerned, "Ok, just be careful. You never know when Xana could be around."

Aelita nodded, leaving us to go inside.

I'm not surprised Jérémie was worried about her being left on her own, even for a minute. She'd often been the one of the main targets of Xana's attacks before, and now that Xana was even stronger he had every right to be concerned about Aelita.

Once seated at the table with our trays, I found I didn't feel like eating very quickly. Still, Rosa had sympathised with the amount of time I'd gone without food and given me double my fair share. I'd once heard it was bad in a situation like this to eat too much at once.

Oh well.

It was only a minute before Aelita and Yumi joined us, Jérémie looking very relieved. Aelita sat beside him, smiling, "It's only been a couple of hours, Jérémie. Would Xana really launch another attack so soon?"

"It's better to be safe than sorry."

Sissi hadn't touched her food, "Tell me another one of your Lyokô stories!"

Ulrich began, "Well there was this one time when you tried to summon a ghost…"

Jérémie butted in, "I have something more important we need to discuss."

Sissi's face drooped slightly, "Long story short?"

"A Tarantula lit Odd's tail on fire."

"Hey!" I had to talk over Sissi's laughter, "You said we wouldn't mention that again!"

"I didn't make any promises."

"Guys!" Jérémie was frowning now, "You need to pay attention. Especially you, Odd."

"Me? Why?"

"They're your nightmares, aren't they?"

I went quiet, looking away.

"Good. Now we still don't know why you're having them, can you give us any clues?"

I shook my head. I still don't get why it had to be me having these nightmares. Sometimes I think it's unfair. Why does it have to be stuffing up _my_ life? Sure, it's a great excuse to get out of school, but those nightmares are downright scary. Why not somebody else's? Each and every time some part of my mind answers me; because there's no one else who would cope with it so well.

What's even more depressing is that whenever I think about this, I always question why it's us five – six, sorry – who have to fight Xana. But looking at the good and the bad points, it's actually not as bad as some people would make it out to be.

Not like those nightmares.

Jérémie brought my thoughts back to the cafeteria, "Are you sure? Nothing at all?"

"Believe me, Jérémie, if I had a clue I'd tell you! Don't you think that I'd want to get rid of them as much as anyone else?"

I looked away again, staring hard at the floor. Everyone but Jérémie was looking sympathetic, he was looking guilty. Nobody talked after that; we sat and ate in silence.

The rest of the day passed in what seemed like a matter of minutes. I tried my best to pay attention to the teachers, to get my mind off what was happening to me. Still my mind kept wandering off, bringing on a sense of darkness.

Come night time I went straight to bed. I was feeling a little better compared to the rest of the week, but still not one hundred percent. I didn't find it hard to get to sleep, dozing off after a few minutes.

I was right to brace myself, as I opened my eyes to find myself back at the ruined school grounds. I clenched my fists, "Why can't you just leave me alone? I know Xana's returned, so why do you keep bringing me here?"

The only sound after that was my own voice echoing off the wreckage.

"Answer me!"

Rubble crunched behind me. I whipped around, but the being I saw wasn't the one I was expecting.

Instead there was a giant black cat. If it weren't for his pointed ears I would've mistaken him for a panther. One eye was red and the other was a dark grey, almost black. He also had an irregularly long tail.

But then he changed.

I stepped back as he changed into a spectral mass of sorts, holding no real shape. The shape grew taller, more and more features becoming detailed as he shapeshifted into a human form, one that looked just like me. He had pale skin and white hair with a black patch in the center, the one black and one red eye remained. He was wearing a suit similar to mine on Lyokô, but with the all-too-familiar eye of Xana instead of a picture of Kiwi. Beside it was some sort of yellow mark that looked like an o with two lines to one side. I think I've seen it before, but where?

All my instincts urged me to move, but curiosity got the better of me yet again. I stood looking at him, waiting for something to happen.

He didn't blink at all, his gaze fixed on mine. He wore a blank look on his face.

Eventually, he moved. He flexed his arms, unsheathing his claws. They were razor-sharp and about an inch long.

"Oh, no…"

I wanted to run, but something held me rooted to the spot. The boy in black crouched down, pouncing towards me with claws outstretched. I cringed, yelling.

"Odd, wake up!"

I looked up to find Ulrich staring down at me, his hands on my shoulders.

He backed away to let me sit up, "That looked like a really bad nightmare. You were tossing and turning a lot more than usual. Are you all right?"

"I think so…" I my arm still stung where that boy had scratched it, "It's weird; I wasn't moving at all in the dream, so why was I here?"

Ulrich shrugged.

I sighed, putting my hand to my sore arm. It felt wet. I'd think that was normal if I had been sweating. I turned my hand over, and I didn't like what I saw.

The skin was stained red.

Checking my arm, I found it had come from four scratches right where I'd been scratched in the dream.

Ulrich sat down beside me, a look of worry on his face, "How is that possible?"

"I must've scratched myself." There was blood under my fingernails as well. I made a mental note to clip those nails.

Ulrich looked at the clock, "You should probably get that cleaned off and bandaged before anyone sees it."

"Ok."

Maybe I shouldn't have gotten angry before, and that wouldn't have happened. But what if that was going to happen anyway? I had every right to know what's going on! If no-one's going to tell me, of course I'll get angry.

…Nothing makes sense anymore.


	13. Alpha

I didn't feel like doing anything today. I didn't want to sleep, nor did I want to go to class. I still had permission to skip classes until I was well again, so I decided on spending the day by myself doing whatever I felt like at the time.

First up was breakfast. I could tell I'd definitely gotten my appetite back as I'd eaten thrice the normal amount of food given in the same time it took the others to finish one serve; all this despite this morning's scare.

I'd cleaned and bandaged the scratches before anyone else had woken, and made Ulrich promise not to tell anyone what happened. It's not that I didn't think it was important – it was – but I didn't want to worry anyone, Aelita especially.

She seemed relieved I was on the way to being back to my normal self again.

"How do you always put so much away? I think I preferred your eating habits when you were tired."

Aelita laughed, "Come on, Jérémie. You should be taking this as a good sign."

I'm glad to see her smile after all she's been through. I hate seeing her upset, it never seems right.

Afterwards we met up with Yumi at our usual set of benches. We had an everyday, normal chat that everyday, normal students would. It was a great change from yesterday's talk at lunch time. I had a chance to relax for the first time in almost a week, to feel like an average school kid again.

"Really? Who told you that?"

"Millie, she reckons it's a massive scoop. She even said she was going undercover to investigate it further."

"I'm not sure Bastien is going to like that!"

Unfortunately our down time was interrupted by the bell.

I sighed, "I'm not going to class today; I need to have some quiet time to myself."

Aelita smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in her eyes, "Ok, we don't mind."

Jéré looked stern, "Just look out for yourself. You never know when Xana will strike next."

"Relax," I taunted, "I can take care of myself – I'm a big boy now!"

Jérémie rolled his eyes before being pulled away by Ulrich and Aelita. Sissi remained behind.

"Is something wrong?"

She shook her head, directing her gaze to the ground, "No, nothing."

Watching after her as she walked to class, I found myself longing for her to open up to me more. She'd gone quiet the past few days, but if we knew why maybe we could help. It didn't seem like her to act like this.

As she disappeared around a corner, I shook my head to clear it.

I wanted to find someplace quiet where I could sit and collect my thoughts, to relax and try to calm down a little. The forest seemed like a good spot. I went back to my room to get Kiwi before heading there.

* * *

Tall trees towered overhead blotting out the sunlight in funny little patterns all over the grassy floor. The occasional bird twittered here and there, without a care in the world. Kiwi trotted along happily beside me, stopping to sniff a tree trunk here and there.

I stopped by the foot of a large tree and sat down leaning my back against it. I took some paper, a pencil and an eraser out of my bag. I hadn't had much time for drawing recently because of everything that was happening so quickly. It was nice to get some time to myself to just draw.

I drew whatever I felt like; friends, family, Kiwi, animals, plants…I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing specifically. I let my mind wander while my hand worked its magic creating lifelike images on the page.

Unfortunately it didn't last; I was brought crashing back down to reality by another school bell. Checking my watch, I confirmed it was the lunch bell. I gathered my belongings and shoved them into the bag, breaking into a run to get back to meet the others. At the edge of the forest I stopped, pointing in the general direction of my room, "Go home, Kiwi."

The little dog obeyed, sticking to the trees as much as he could on his way back.

"You coming?"

I turned to Ulrich and nodded, following him back to the cafeteria it only seemed like minutes since I'd left. I sat beside Sissi at the table. She was picking at her food and didn't look very hungry. The others were having another general conversation about something that had happened in class. I would've joined in, but I wanted to look at what I'd drawn instead. I multitasked, of course, eating at the same time.

I retrieved the paper from my bag, sorting through two pages of random sketches of different people before I got to the third.

I choked on my food, coughing until I got it back up to my mouth.

The page was covered in the same symbol I saw on that boy in black.

Yumi looked up, "Hey, Odd…I'm pretty sure the idea is to _swallow_ your food, not inhale it."

Ulrich examined the page in front of me, "What kind of symbol is that?"

I picked up my glass, "I don't know, I think I've seen it somewhere before but I don't know where."

"Let me have a look." Ulrich passed the paper to Jérémie, revealing the page underneath it.

I immediately slapped my hand over it and pulled it onto my lap as soon as I realised it was covered in pictures of Sissi in assorted poses. Ulrich smirked and I glared back.

Jérémie put the page back down, "It's the lowercase Greek letter Alpha."

"Alpha?"

"Yes, there's no mistaking it. It can either stand for our letter A or the number one."

Alpha…

Somehow this was related to that boy I saw, and unfortunately the only way to find out how was to wait and see. I put my hand on my sore arm. Judging by what he could do, that wasn't an option I was looking forward to.

Jérémie interrupted my thoughts, "Why did you do this?"

Drat. I really didn't want him to ask that.

"I don't know, I was just drawing whatever I felt like." I came up with an excuse on the spot, "I guess I was just thinking I'm always number one!"

"Bah, yeah right."

This got a laugh from the others, but I didn't feel like joining them. If this Alpha person did really exist, I didn't want to run into him anytime soon.


	14. A New Friend

**Ok, sorry for the delay. I have to work on a graphic novel for my English assignment, and I only have about four weeks to finish it (it's not enough!)**

**Nonetheless, here's the next chapter.**

* * *

"Do you think you'll be coming back to class after this?"

I followed Ulrich out of the cafeteria, not really thinking about his suggestion before answering, "I don't think so. Somehow the prospect of going back to class again doesn't sound so appealing to me."

"Well there's a surprise."

In truth, I don't really know what I want to do for the rest of the day. I'm not tired enough to sleep; and I don't really want to try drawing something again after what happened last time. Maybe I could take Kiwi for a long walk or something.

I followed the others towards our usual set of benches in the other quad.

Aelita was talking with Jérémie about something when she stopped abruptly, looking over to the vending machines, "What's going on there?"

There were excited yelling noises coming from the other side of the small building.

"Yeah, get it!"

"Haha! Look at it squirm!"

"Go on, hit it again!"

We rounded the corner quickly to find three boys throwing stones at something near the wall. They seemed like they were having the time of their lives, egging each other on as they picked up more rocks and aimed at the small, mewling creature.

Yumi stepped forward, her hands on her hips. She had that 'don't mess with me' look on her face, and trust me, when she does you don't want to mess with her.

"What are you doing?"

All three boys stopped, still wearing large smirks on their faces. The one at the front, who seemed to be the leader, answered her, "What's it to you, Ishiyama? Can't a few boys have some fun once in a while?"

"That depends; is it safe or not?"

Aelita stepped up to the thing they were throwing the stones at, gently picking it up and cradling it in her arms, "Yumi, it's just a kitten." Sadness was written all across her face.

Now Yumi was furious, "How could you?!"

The head boy tossed his rock up and down, "Way to spoil our game, Stones."

Before either of the girls could react, he threw the rock straight for Aelita. She cringed against the wall, shielding the kitten with her body. But the rock never made it that far.

Quickly I stepped forward and grabbed the rock out of the air, throwing it back in the other direction. It whizzed past the boy's head, barely missing his ear. The only way to describe his reaction was pure shock.

I frowned, "I never miss by accident."

He freaked, signalling for the others to run, "Come on, let's get out of here!"

All three boys pelted away, screaming their heads off. I couldn't suppress a giggle. They looked absolutely ridiculous!

"'I never miss by accident,' huh?" Ulrich folded his arms, "So all those times on Lyokô were on purpose?"

"Ok, so that was a lie. But I had to scare them off _somehow_."

Everyone started crowding around Aelita, still holding the kitten. It was shaking uncontrollably and its long grey fur was matted in places from blood.

Aelita looked up looking really worried, "What do we do?"

Slowly but surely, all pairs of eyes turned to rest on me.

I looked around, "I'm sorry, did I miss something here?"

Yumi frowned, "Come on, Odd! You're the one who has the most experience with animals; you own a dog and you're half cat on Lyokô. You've got to know something!"

I find it weird that I only find people directly calling me a cat awkward while not on Lyokô…

I looked from Aelita's face and back to the tiny grey ball of fluff. Aelita stepped forward, pouting slightly as she attempted puppy dog eyes. I must admit she was pretty good at it.

"Pleeeease?"

I sighing, I gave in, "I should have some stuff in our room that could help…why did you think I would have said no?"

She grinned, "I didn't. I just wanted to see your reaction to that; I've been practising!"

What for?

I checked for any teachers hanging around on the other side of the building. There were a few students lingering around but no adults, "The coast is clear, come on."

We hurried to the dorm entrance, keeping an eye out for trouble in the form of Jim at all times.

I still don't get why they didn't think I'd offer to help. I was going to speak up, but then they made me feel awkward and I got sidetracked…now I must seem inconsiderate. Actually, looking back on some times in the past, that's more of an understatement.

We made it to mine and Ulrich's room without being spotted with the kitten. I immediately made my way to the cupboard where I kept miscellaneous first aid stuff for Kiwi. It was in a backpack so nobody would find it suspicious.

Aelita set the trembling animal down on the bed. It curled up into a ball.

Sissi crouched down on the floor, tilting her head to one side, "Poor little guy…"

I took out some gauze and antiseptic, soaking the cloth with it. It smelled strongly. How do they put up with this stuff?

"Come on, I'm not going to hurt you…" I reached out to the kitten slowly, holding my hand near it so it could get used to my scent. Apparently it had other ideas, lashing out with one clawed paw as I got too close.

I drew my hand back just in time to avoid being scratched.

Jérémie backed away a bit, "You may not want to hurt it, but it sure wants to hurt you."

I shook my head, "It's just scared. Personally I don't blame it…hey, Aelita?"

She looked up at me, her green eyes still troubled, "Hm?"

"Maybe you could try the antiseptic." I held out the gauze, "It seems to trust you."

Aelita took it from me, reaching out to the kitten slowly as I had. This time, however, it sniffed her hand cautiously. Aelita smiled, stroking its cheek, "Good girl."

It flinched, not from Aelita but towards her, as another weight jumped up on the bed. Kiwi padded forward to the kitten, tongue lolling.

"Kiwi! Get down!" I tried to grab and stop him, but he started barking as I got closer.

To everyone's surprise, Kiwi knelt down beside the kitten and started licking a wound on its leg. It didn't seem to mind.

Aelita giggled and started working with the antiseptic.

Sissi propped her head up on her arms on the bed, "I guess it's just not your day with animals, is it Odd?"

"Apparently not…"

Soon enough, the little kitten was clean and had stopped shivering as much. It started licking Kiwi back, purring.

"There were no serious injuries," Aelita binned the gauze, "I'm thankful we got there in time."

Yumi nodded, "Those boys deserve to be punished for what they did."

"I wonder what she was doing out here…"

"How old is it?" Jérémie asked.

"Judging by its size and the softness of its fur," I started, "I'd say a few months."

Ulrich sat down beside me, "Do you think Jim will let you keep it until it's old enough to be adopted out?"

"I hope so." Aelita ran her fingers across its small body, "What should we call her?"

"I know! Dye its fur purple and call it Odd!"

I glared at Ulrich.

Aelita shook her head, "No, that'd be too confusing." It sounded like she actually considered that as an option, "Besides, she's female."

"So?"

I glared at Ulrich more. He smirked back.

I shook my head and turned back to Aelita, "I think you should choose a name."

"Hm…how about Éclair, for its light and fluffy fur?"

"Great! A name that suits the owner _and_ it sounds like a delicious food! Nice choice, Aelita."

Yumi sighed, "You have a one-track mind, Odd."

Everyone laughed. "Just don't try eating the poor thing!" Aelita winked.

I wish I had a one-track mind right now; I would love to get this whole return of Xana thing off my mind. But I guess it's just false hope.

Speak of the devil…Jérémie's laptop started beeping to alert him of an activated Tower.

We all knew what it meant, standing up to head for the Factory. Everyone filed out the door with solemn expressions, a real let down after all the laughter just moments ago.

Aelita stopped and looked back at Éclair, who had now fallen asleep next to Kiwi. I ushered her out the door, "They'll be fine."

I wish I could say the same for us.

As we reached the bottom of the staircase, the bell rang.

Jéré sighed, "Looks like we'll have to skip class after all."

"No real loss." Ulrich shrugged.

To avoid suspicion, we walked, looking like just another group of kids heading off to class.

Yumi turned to Jérémie, "Let's hope this isn't another silent attack."

Aelita looked thoughtful, "What if last time Xana wasn't targeting us, but another part of the world?"

"It wasn't." Jérémie seemed completely sure of himself, "I was looking into the computer data at the time of the silent attack. It looks like Xana was messing with the virtualisation process."

"What did she do?"

"I'm not sure exactly; all I know is that she did something with the data, but it wasn't corrupted or deleted."

We reached the forest and Ulrich frowned, "I wonder what she wanted…"

Since all the other students had gone to class, we broke into a run towards the manhole. It wasn't long, though, until I found myself crashing into Yumi who had crashed into Ulrich who had crashed into Aelita who had crashed into Jérémie. Sissi then ran into me, making me regret my current height. Maybe we shouldn't have been running in single file.

I glanced out from behind Yumi to find out why Jérémie had stopped. A spectre was forming directly in front of him, only standing about half a metre away. The spectre started to take a familiar shape, an amused laugh coming from it.

Xana stood just in front of Jérémie, laughing at our position.

Yumi stepped out of the line, pushing me back into Sissi, "Xana! What are you doing here?"

The raven-haired virus stopped laughing, "Don't you get it, Yumi? This is the attack."

Jéré's glasses slipped down to the bridge of his nose and Xana pushed them back up for him. She started walking down past us, on the opposite side to where Yumi had stepped out, "But I've also brought some friends along with me."

She stopped in front of me, smirking. With one swift movement she grabbed my right arm and pulled both the sleeve and bandage up to my shoulder. Four red lines stretched along my arm, not fully scabbed since they were cut. I'd totally forgetten about them in all the excitement.

Xana ran her fingers along the scratches, "And I believe you already know one of them."

I jerked my arm back, holding it with my other hand.

Jérémie shot a look at me, "Why didn't you tell us?!"

"I didn't think it was important-"

Xana interrupted me, "Oh, but it is. Lyokô Warriors, meet…"

Shadows shifted in the trees around us.

"…The Dark Warriors"

* * *

**Now I'll leave you to ponder over that cliffhanger as I go back to working on my graphic novel!**

* * *

**Éclair's appearance was inspired by my old cat, Bippy. She was a grey longhair and had a really cute mew, but she had to be put down because of misbehaviour. We found her as a stray in my neighbour's yard and adopted her, like Aelita did with Éclair.**

**The name was based on the French word for light (as in light blue), which is **_**clair**_**, inspired by her light and fluffy fur.**


	15. The Dark Warriors

"_Lyokô Warriors, meet...the Dark Warriors._"

I froze as five figures began to emerge from the trees around us. Xana's smirk continued to grow, contented as she watched us squirm. It didn't take long for the figures to fully emerge, surrounding our little group. At a cursory glance I noticed they all looked identical to one of us.

Xana put on a fake friendly voice as she 'introduced' us, "Lyokô Warriors, this is Epsilon..."

She directed our attention to a blond boy standing near Jérémie. He was dressed in various shades of green decorated with elaborate digital patterns. A belt around his waist holstered a small pocket and some sort of weapon; it looked kind of like a light sabre. His eyes were concealed behind an orange visor which he removed to smile slyly at us. There was a yellow **ε** on his chest beside the eye of Xana. Jérémie's glasses started slipping down his nose as he started in fear at his dark doppelganger.

"...Delta..."

Next was a tall red-haired female dressed like Yumi, if not a little skimpier. Her tights had gone, revealing her bare legs. The way she held herself was also disturbing; she was cocking her hip and jutting out her chest. She titled her head to one side and winked at Ulrich, who flinched. There was a yellow **δ** on her chest. Yumi seemed outright disgusted at Delta's appearance. I can't blame her.

"…Gamma…"

Ulrich's clone didn't have many visual differences. He was dressed in red with black hair. He had a yellow **γ** symbol under his neck. He smirked at our group, "Look at them squirm. I could dice them all up in one go!" He sounded like Ulrich, with an electronic tinge to his voice like anyone possessed by Xana. Ulrich didn't really display any emotion to Gamma other than annoyance.

"Calm down, Gamma. There'll be time for that later. Second-last is Beta…"

Beta was dressed in greyish-purple clothing similar to Aelita's. Her skirt and shoulder pads were torn yet still partially intact. As we stared at her, a long tongue curled out of her mouth followed by an ear-piercing laugh that made everyone flinch. Her eyes showed hints of madness. She had a **β** mark in the same place Gamma had his. Aelita backed into my side and I put my hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She wouldn't stop shaking.

"…And last but not least, Alpha."

The person standing in front of me was the same one from my dream. He looked just as realistic as he had the last I saw him, holding my gaze without blinking. The yellow **α** on his chest stood out against the black and grey of his suit. Unlike the other Dark Warriors, he didn't change his expression when he was named.

"So, what do you think?" Xana walked around behind the five, stopping at Gamma. She put her hands on his shoulders, smiling, "Pretty realistic don't you think?"

I shrugged, "Guess you ran out of monster ideas, huh?" Ulrich elbowed me hard in the side.

Her fake smile instantly dropped, making me regret my statement. She walked away from Gamma and continued to pace around at random, "Looks can be deceiving, Odd. Their powers are quite different to all of yours. For example, I understand that you have none, yes?"

I didn't respond. Jérémie had removed my only power when he upgraded the Supercomputer because he believed it to be 'useless'. I beg to differ; Future Flash had saved us lots of times, even if I didn't have control over it. Jérémie had tried to rectify the loss later on with the creation of Teleportation, but that didn't work out as well as we planned.

Xana continued, "Well that's quite the opposite with Alpha, as you should know."

I'd hoped it was just a mistake, but unfortunately it was true. Alpha could transform into a cat the size of a panther, and his claws hurt.

"Well then, I'm going to leave you for about ten minutes to get acquainted."

Beta responded with another shrill laugh. Gamma grinned, "Finally!"

"Remember, no hitting the vital parts. I want them alive for later."

"Yes, master." Four voices chimed as Xana started to disappear.

Once she was gone, Gamma instantly drew one of his swords from the sheath on his back and pointed it at Ulrich, "Think you can take me on?" He smirked.

Ulrich stepped forward and Yumi placed her hand on his shoulder, "Good luck." She sounded really worried.

Ulrich smiled at her before advancing forward again.

Gamma chuckled, suddenly rushing towards Ulrich as a stream of redlight to stand beside him. The brunet jumped back in surprise.

"This is hardly going to be a challenge. I'll let you have a head start," he gestured deeper into the forest, "Ten seconds. _Run_."

Taking one look at Gamma's arsenal, Ulrich sprinted into the trees. After ten seconds, as promised, he was followed by Gamma running at the speed of sound.

"I'm going next." Epsilon pulled his weapon out of its holster and extended it. Just as I'd guessed before, it was a light sabre. It was a dual light sabre with red blades. Jérémie jumped back into the rest of us.

Epsilon shrugged, "This'll be too easy."

Jéré bolted further into the forest with Aelita calling after him in despair, "Jérémie!"

Lowering his weapon, Epsilon started off at a walk after the young Einstein.

A razor metal fan separated Yumi from the rest of us. It circled back around and returned to Delta's hand. She pretended to fan her face with it, "I doubt someone like you could ever beat a pretty girl like me."

Yumi growled, "Pretty? You look just like a-"

"Watch your language, you. Now fight me."

"With pleasure!"

Yumi ran after Delta with a frown on her face. She probably wanted to get Xana back for doing that to her image, but given that we didn't have our powers at the moment, she probably wouldn't get the chance.

Aelita backed up further, "We shouldn't be splitting up, we need to stay together!"

Only three of us remained; Aelita, Sissi and myself.

"Well that's too bad!" Beta's voice was sharp and high-pitched like her laugh, but not as annoying, "'Cause now you're going to have to face off against me!" She laughed again, tilting her head to the skies and letting her tongue loll out of her mouth. All three of us cringed.

Eventually she looked back down at us, waving her hand over a Xana symbol on her wrist. Two large dragon-like wings sprouted from her back who Aelita's angel ones would normally be.

Cackling, she swooped forwards and scooped Aelita up, carrying her off screaming.

"Aelita! No!"

Sissi clung to my arm, "What do we do, Odd?"

"I-I don't know. I want to go after her, but…"

I looked back to Alpha, the last Dark Warrior, and tried to resist the urge to go after Aelita. If I tried to pull anything, he'd be on top of me in a flash. The best way to avoid a fight was to stay right where I was.

At least, I hoped it was.

Alpha didn't move. He still didn't say anything or show any emotion. It was kind of unnerving. Eventually he stopped staring at me and directed his attention to a couple of birds in a nearby tree. I decided to take this chance to try and make a move, but as soon as I shifted just a couple of centimetres he was staring at me again.

Sissi still hadn't let go of my arm, "H-How did he do that?"

"Cat eyes are built to sense movement. We won't be getting out of here in a hurry."

He tilted his head to one side, observing us. I noticed a glint in his eyes, and his form started to change.

"He's shapeshifting, run!"

I didn't need to tell her twice. Sissi ran along beside me as we escaped into the trees. She may not have been very fast, but her longer leg span helped a lot. Darn my shortness.

It wasn't long before we heard the thumping of paws gaining ground behind us. I pushed Sissi into a bush and rolled the opposite way just as Alpha pounced on the ground where we had been.

"It's me he's after, go the other way!"

"But-"

Alpha interrupted her with a low growl, turning to glare at me and bearing his teeth. I upped and ran in the other direction heading towards the Redtrail Crossroads. I heard Sissi call my name as I ran. I didn't turn back, I didn't need to. I could easily hear Alpha running after me.

What the heck was I thinking running away from someone faster and stronger than me?

Five minutes. Five minutes was all the time I needed to stay away from him until Xana called them off.

I wouldn't make it.

I ducked and rolled as he tried to pounce on me again, claws digging into the dirt. I didn't hesitate to keep running, thankful for the small yet effective head start I now had.

I couldn't do anything but run. If I tried to climb the trees instead, he'd have a major advantage and knock me back down to the ground again in no time. My only option was to run zigzags between the trees trying to avoid any clearings. No doubt it was an idiotic option, but it was the one which would least likely get me seriously injured.

Ducking behind another tree as he attempted another pounce, I quickly checked my watch before running again. Two minutes. Just one hundred and twenty seconds until I was safe.

If he hadn't have already caught up to me using the time I had hesitated.

Before I had time to react, I was pushed face-first to the ground by a heavy weight on my back. Alpha used his oversized claws to pin me to the ground, snarling. I heard him open his mouth to try and bite me, and responded with a kick to the stomach. He lost his balance for a second, trying to use his claws to steady him as he fell left. Unfortunately this meant him digging them into my right shoulder. They scratched right through after not being able to find anything to anchor the giant cat.

It stung like heck. Alpha had fallen over onto the ground nearby. I held my hand to my shoulder and squeezed, trying to intensify the pain so there wouldn't be as much of it later. It became unbearable and I gave up, feeling a liquid substance start seeping between my fingers.

Alpha picked himself up and walked around in front of me.

One minute, that was all I needed. Just one minute…

I watched Alpha study my injured shoulder and look back to my face. He didn't attack, but instead backed away a couple of paces before pounding away into the trees.

"I wonder what that was about…"

"Odd! You're ok!"

Sissi rushed up from behind me and crouched by my side.

"You followed me?"

"Oh my gosh, what happened?"

She gently held my wrist, coaxing it away from my shoulder. I took a chance and glanced down at it.

My clothes and skin had been stained red with bits of brown from the dirt. My sleeve had been torn in four places, leaving gaping holes in the material.

Sissi helped me back up again, "You need to go see Yolande…"

"And what am I supposed to tell her when she asks me what happened? That I was attacked by a giant black cat?"

That comment sounded harsher than I had meant it to, and Sissi leaned away slightly.

"Sorry, I'm just a little dazed from…well, everything."

"That's ok." She sounded a little quieter than before.

"Odd! There you are!"

Aelita looked extremely relieved as she approached with the others.

"We were worried after you didn't join us when the Dark Warriors retreated." Yumi explained.

Everyone else had little cuts and scratches here and there, but nothing serious.

Jérémie crouched down on the ground with his laptop and started typing rapidly as Aelita looked worriedly at my shoulder.

"It's not that serious, don't worry. Doesn't hurt that much." That was a lie. I'd be lucky if it didn't scar.

Jérémie spoke up suddenly, "Looks like Xana kept her promise; ten minutes."

"What do you mean?"

"The Tower deactivated itself."


	16. A Cousin in Need

"Oh, hello Odd. You're here to see me again?"

"Uh…yeah, I…" need to think of a good excuse. The others could tend to their wounds without the help of a nurse, lucky them. They didn't need to explain themselves. I could hardly tell Yolande that I was attacked by an evil clone of myself that can turn into a giant black cat with sharp claws that can tear through skin in a heartbeat.

"…tore my arm open on a sharp tree branch." Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

The nurse closed the medicine cabinet she'd been sorting and walked over, "Let me see."

I gingerly removed my hand from my blood-soaked shoulder to let Yolande look at it.

Her expression changed rapidly to one of extreme concern, "My goodness! What were you doing?"

Great, more excuses. I should've thought about this earlier, but it's a little hard when you're rushing to the nurse's office rapidly losing blood! Then again, since when have I been one to think things through?

At least a good excuse wouldn't have made me sound like a complete idiot.

"I was being chased by…a bird." What?

She raised an eyebrow, "A bird?"

"Uh…yeah! A very dangerous bird! I don't know what species it was, though."

"Well if there's a bird like that on the loose I should have the principal look into things."

Yolande motioned for me to sit down on the bed and she started moving around to various cabinets collecting medicine and bandages.

She bought it?

Excellent, now she thinks I'm afraid of birds. Great reputation you're building yourself here, Odd!

Although I would've preferred it to be a bird and not Alpha.

"Come over and wash yourself off in the sink. You'll need to take your shirt off."

I complied, allowing her to help me wash off the blood on my shoulder properly when I couldn't reach. Once it was clean I could easily identify the four cuts caused by the Dark Warrior's sharp claws. They were deep, too, like any normal cat scratch. It was still bleeding and stung.

I was guided back to the bed for Yolande to start dressing the wounds.

"This is just some antibiotics. It'll sting a little."

I inhaled quickly as I felt the cold stinging liquid on my sore shoulder.

It was a horrible reminder that all of this was real. The stakes have been raised and Xana's not taking any chances with us anymore. The whole world's depending on the six of us, whether they know it or not.

I get the feeling that we'll have to finish her off quickly if we stand a chance of survival.

* * *

I quietly unlocked the door to our room and went to fetch some new clothes. Thankfully nobody was around the dorms at this hour; I'd had to walk up here half naked. I could do a patch job on the other ones later, but right now I had to go see the others.

Kiwi jumped off the bed and started tugging at my pant leg, letting out a low whine.

"All right, I'll feed you."

He barked and wagged his tail.

As I retrieved his bowl and biscuits from their respective drawers, my attention was drawn to a soft body winding itself around my legs, purring.

"I guess you must be hungry too." I picked Éclair up, supporting her back legs on one arm and her front legs on my good shoulder.

"Wow, you're pretty light!" I could feel her ribs under her thick coat of fur, "How long have you been a stray, I wonder? It's remarkable you don't have fleas."

All I got in response was a little mew, and she tried to struggle out of my grip as I poured the biscuits.

"Are you sure you want those? They're dog biscuits – maybe a little too strong for a kitten."

Mew.

"Ok then. Kiwi, you'll have to share." I set the cat down next to the bowl and she dug in happily. Kiwi sat back to eat her fill, which shouldn't be much of what was there. I picked him up and sat him in my lap, sighing.

"At least you don't have to worry about all this Xana stuff. All you really need to care about is when I'm going to feed you…

"…Sometimes I think we're in way over our heads."

The little dog responded by licking my face.

I smiled, "Then again, it can be pretty fun on Lyokô."

Woof.

"I'm talking to animals, aren't I?"

Two woofs.

I sighed again, "I should probably go see the others now. Behave yourselves, you hear?"

I slipped on a random shirt pulled out of the cupboard. I've got to remind myself to give Aelita some cat food if she's going to keep Éclair in her room.

* * *

"How's your shoulder?"

"Better, thanks."

I sat down next to Aelita at the table, placing my tray of food in front of me. The pink-haired girl smiled sweetly at me and I smiled back. Ulrich and Yumi were discussing something about classes between themselves before Jérémie called everyone's attention.

"We need to work out what we're going to do about the Dark Warriors."

"But Jéré," Yumi started, "We don't know enough about them to decide anything yet."

"Personally I don't want to get to know them that well."

Ulrich frowned, "Why? What did Epsilon do to you?"

"That doesn't matter. For now we just need to think of a plan."

"Typical," I muttered to myself between mouthfuls, "The conversation gets depressing just as I arrive."

"We couldn't start without you, Odd," Aelita whispered, "Otherwise there'd be no-one to make it seem less disconsolate."

"Dis-what?"

"Odd, Aelita! Please, I'm trying to do what's best for all of us! So unless you have something to add, please keep it to yourself."

Aelita bowed her head. She must be upset about how Jérémie's been acting lately. How could he do that to her?

I cut Jérémie off before he could start talking again, "Y'know what, Einstein? You've been pretty harsh these past few days. Maybe you should ease up a little."

"You want me to ease up, Odd? Ok, and while I'm at it why don't I just kick back and let Xana take over the world?"

"That's not what I-"

"Oh, and just in case you haven't figured it out yet, the sooner we defeat Xana the sooner you stop having those nightmares. So if I were you, I'd start participating more in these discussions so we can take her down!"

I slammed my fist on the table, attracting the attention of most of the students in the cafeteria, "Well if _I_ were _you_, I'd start caring more about Aelita!"

I can't take the way he's been ignoring her any more. She really needs him right now, but he's always at his computer instead of by her side. It's not fair.

"You don't get it! I'm doing all of this for Aelita!"

Aelita stood up between us suddenly, tears rolling down her cheeks, "Sure, you're protecting me Jérémie and I appreciate that. But you're not caring about how I feel about this, and that's what matters most to me!"

We watched as she ran outside and into the forest. Jérémie slammed his face onto the table.

Sissi caught my gaze and nodded, silently telling me to go after Aelita.

I felt the eyes of all the people in the cafeteria on me as I chased after my crying cousin.

* * *

"Aelita?"

She was lying on her bedroom floor, in the Hermitage. She always came here when she needed to be by herself because it reminded her of her parents.

I sat down beside her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She started sniffling, jerking occasionally as she breathed in quickly.

"I understand if you hate me for what I did and never want to talk to me again, but I'm going to stay here until you stop crying no matter how many times you tell me to leave."

The younger girl rolled over to face me, "It's-not that. I really do appre-appreciate what you d-did." She managed between sniffs, "I just hope it-it opens Jérémie's eyes-again."

She sat up slowly and looked me straight in the eye. Her soft emeralds were red and glazed over, and her cheeks were wet.

She didn't even try to wipe away the tears before she threw her arms over me. I hugged back, holding her tight.

"I-I really do love him, Odd."

"I know."

"But sometimes it-it doesn't feel l-like he loves me back."

"He does, Aelita. I promise you. He's just been acting like this because he doesn't want you to get hurt."

"Y-you think so?"

"I know so. He'd do anything for you, Aelita."

She buried her head in my shoulder, still crying. I rubbed her back, trying to figure out a way to make her happy again.

"I hate seeing you like this, you know."

"I-I'm sorry."

Then it hit me, "Hey, I've got an idea that should cheer you up!"

"What-is it?"

"I'll show you. Are you going to get up, or should I carry you there?"

No response.

"Ok."

I slid one of my arms under her knees and picked her up as I stood.

"Odd!" she struggled a little.

"I asked you, but you didn't say anything!"

"Put me down…"

"As you wish, Princess."

I let her down gently, instead taking her hand this time, "Come on, I know you'll feel better after this."

* * *

I walked up the stairs quickly, holding the squirming kitten in my arms.

"Come on, we're going to see Aelita."

I risked taking one hand away to open the door, hoping Éclair wouldn't jump out of my arms suddenly. She didn't, instead seeming more interested in the room we were entering. It probably smelled strongly like Aelita to the cat.

Said girl was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking down at the floor. I sat beside her and let Éclair out of my grip. She padded over to Aelita and brushed her head against her hand. Aelita looked up suddenly, her eyes and smile warming.

She let the kitten onto her lap, stroking its fur. Éclair purred loudly and Aelita giggled, "Thank you, Odd."

I smiled, "No problem," I got up and set a bad of dog biscuits on the desk, "We should go out and buy some cat food tomorrow. If you need anything, just call."

"Will do."

I closed the door quietly, walking along the hallway towards the stairs.

"Jérémie…"

* * *

**Mostly filler, I think D:**

**For those of you who may have been worried, I'm not dead or discontinuing the fic – I've just been having a few computer issues lately. And when they were sorted out, I had writer's block…so it's been kinda difficult.**

**By the way, DW (in the chapter name) stands for Dark Warriors, it just means it's the second arc in the story. It would get way too long and confusing without arcs, but it's nothing you should be worrying about.**

**Also, I'm going to have some review incentives soon. Not because I want more people to review, it's just advertisement for my art [kekeke] but I need to get the programs reinstalled first.**


	17. Apologies

The rest of the day had gone off without a hitch; Aelita and Jérémie had stayed in their rooms for the rest of the afternoon leaving the rest of us to wonder if they'd be able to make up any time soon. In the end we'd decided that of course they'd become good friends again, they always did. Even so, the worry between the four of us was palpable.

Today was Sunday, no classes. I'm guessing at least four of the others had left me to sleep in peace, but when I woke I was surprised to find Jérémie sitting on Ulrich's bed on the other side of the room.

He wouldn't stop looking at me. It wasn't really a stare, but it was still sort of unnerving. It led me to wonder just how long he'd been waiting there watching me sleep.

He didn't move as I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, "Good morning."

I yawned, "Morning."

A couple minute's silence followed and I could tell he was getting more nervous by the second.

"So…" eventually he decided to break the silence, "…it looked like you had a pretty peaceful sleep for once."

"Yeah. No nightmares last night." Now that I think about it, they sort of seemed like visions. I hope not, because if they are then Kadic's fate isn't a good one.

Jérémie nodded slowly, thinking carefully about what to say next, "What do you normally see, exactly?"

I hesitated. I really didn't want to go into stuff like this, the idea of Xana winning and the entire world ending up in that state was truly scary. Still, I hear that talking about nightmares can help relieve the negative feelings.

I still felt uneasy about discussing them with Jérémie of all people, especially after what happened yesterday with Aelita. I still felt uncomfortable after the way he'd confronted me in front of the others at the cafeteria the other day. But we were still friends, and if anyone could help me figure this out he could, with his knowledge about computers and Lyokô.

"I…I see Kadic Academy, only most of it's not there. It was destroyed, just ruins. Everything was either knocked or burnt down, and the students…"

The words caught in my throat. Some people, fellow students, people we knew well, hadn't made it out. I didn't want to discuss it. We had to stop it from happening, no questions asked.

"But there's always someone else there…he looks exactly like me when I'm on Lyokô. He never gets close to me, or speaks, and he's kind of see-through like a ghost. I know he has something to do with all this, but I don't know what."

Jérémie frowned, taking everything in, which was a lot. He then looked back up at me, "Do you think it could be premonitions?"

"No." I barely gave him a chance to finish the sentence, "No, I can't have visions on Earth. Or Lyokô for that matter…it's impossible."

"Aelita said she had a vision of her father's death the night before it happened." It scared me that he didn't hesitate to talk about that certain topic, "People have déjà vu all the time, it could be that."

"I've had déjà vu many times before, Jérémie. It's nothing like this."

"How so?"

"It feels as if I'm actually there! I can see and hear far better than in a normal dream. Plus I can smell, taste and touch too! When I get attacked, it hurts."

Jérémie glanced down to the four scabbed scratches on my arm. Since I wore long sleeves during the day, I didn't bother covering it up with a bandage now that it had healed. I still had one on my shoulder, though. That wouldn't heal properly for a while.

The blond opposite me nodded again, looking towards the window and not saying anything.

I took his silence as a chance to ask my own question, "Why are you here?"

He looked up abruptly and I continued, "I can tell you didn't just come here to ask me about my nightmares. What's up?"

"Oh, I, uh…" he looked sheepish, "I…wanted to apologise. For yesterday. I shouldn't have acted like that, and…I'm sorry."

"I think Aelita's the one you should be apologising to, not me. She was really hurt because of what you did."

"I know, I was such a jerk! I was just trying to look out for her, and…" he bowed his head, "She deserves better than someone like me."

I rolled my eyes and got up to sit next to Jérémie, placing my hand on his shoulder, "Listen, Einstein. Aelita knows how conflicted you are about this. If you just apologise to her, I'm sure she'll forgive you."

"You think so?"

"I know so. She loves you, Jérémie. Don't forget that."

That brightened him up a little, and he smiled, "You know, I've always sort of envied you."

That caught me off guard, "Why? 'cause I always get the girls?"

"Ok, one; you don't, and two; no. It's because you always protect Aelita on Lyokô. You'd risk your own life and throw yourself in front of her even if it meant you might not come back. Sometimes I feel so inadequate sitting in front of that screen the whole time while you guys do all the work."

Wow. I never guessed he'd feel that way. Jérémie was always too scared to go to Lyokô, and seemed perfectly contended sitting in his cushy chair watching us get Aelita to the Tower. I guess I was wrong about him.

I shook my head, "But you do much more than that. Me and the others get to take care of all the action on Lyokô, it's what we're good at. Without you we definitely wouldn't be able to cope at all. You're our Einstein, who knows where we'd be now without you? Don't forget that you were the one who spent all those sleepless nights creating her materialisation program, trying to find her anti-virus, and even though we thought Franz was gone you still helped her look for him. Go apologise to her, she'll understand."

The genius now sported a grin, "Ok! I'll do it right now!"

Just as he jumped up ready to leave, a loud beeping sounded from his laptop. His grin instantly vanished, replaced by a look of loss.

He grabbed the bag and headed outside, "Get dressed; we'll meet you at the factory."

I gave him a quick nod before Jérémie was out the door with his phone in hand.

I decided not to get fully dressed in all the layers I normally wore, just sticking with a skivvy and pants. If it were night time I wouldn't have bothered at all, but since it was the middle of the day on Sunday it would've been strange if I'd have been caught running across the school grounds in my pyjamas. I still made an effort to avoid any of the popular areas just in case.

* * *

It wasn't long before I was running across the bridge in front of the factory. I swung down the rope with ease and called the lift up, reaching for my phone and speed dialling Jérémie's number.

"I'm here, Einstein."

"Ok, head straight to the scanner room."

Before he could hang up, I posed another question, "Have you apologised yet?"

There was a muffled gasp on the other side of the phone and Jérémie lowered his voice, "Of course not, I didn't have time!"

He hung up on me just as the lift reached the top floor. I shrugged, it was a reasonable excuse. But knowing how shy Jérémie gets around girls, I figured I'd have to badger him a bit more until he actually managed to do it.

But if he really cared about Aelita, he'd apologise without my persuasion.

I felt a bit of excitement as I walked towards one of the scanners. I'd only been to Lyokô once since all this began, I was missing out on all the fun.

Jérémie's voice sounded over the P.A., "There's no trouble as of yet, but be on your guard when you get there. There others will be waiting."

"Aww, but no monsters means no fun!"

"Odd…"

"Ok, ok…I was just saying."

* * *

The virtualisation process went past like a blur, and soon enough I was landing on all fours in the Desert sector. Just as Jérémie had said, Aelita, Yumi and Ulrich were all waiting.

Ulrich stood up from leaning against a rock, "You sure took your time."

"Hey, I wasn't that far behind you!"

Yumi cut in before our argument could progress, "Come on, guys. Let's get to the Tower before Xana decides to send us monsters."

"Yumi's right." Jérémie agreed, "I see nothing on the radar for now, you should get a move on while the going's good."

Yumi and Ulrich didn't need to be told twice, running towards the Tower together. I was about to join them when I noticed that Aelita had stayed behind, so I stopped and stood next to her.

"You ok?"

She nodded, "Yeah," she was smiling when she turned to face me, but I knew it was fake, "I'm fine."

Aelita ran off behind the others and I followed after her. I could spot the Tower in the distance, it was pretty close.

But of course Xana had to ruin the peace and quiet.

In a blur of red, Gamma appeared in front of Aelita with his arms stretched out to stop her, "Nah-uh-uh!"

Still in a run, I slammed into Aelita from the side, pushing us both away from Gamma. I reached for her star-shaped wrist band and waved my hand across it. She almost fell over from the impact, but just as she was close to hitting the ground she was pushed back up again by the two angel wings forming on her back.

I fell onto my hands as she flew out from beneath me, "Get to the Tower, hurry!"

She gave a quick nod and flew off towards the active Tower. Gamma sped in front of me before I could pick myself up, "You're going to regret that fairly soon."

I scrambled backwards out of the way as he pulled out both his swords and stabbed his sword into the ground where I'd been moments earlier. Spotting a group of tall rocks nearby, I dashed on all fours towards it before Gamma could recover his weapons.

I climbed up the rock face with ease, turning around to see Gamma appear at the bottom of it. He could've tried to run up it at full speed, but it was too slanted for him to make it up without something to grip with. Like claws, for example.

He started pacing around beneath me, watching and waiting for the right time to strike. I tried firing a few arrows at him, but he would just dash out of the way before they made contact.

He smirked, "What's the matter, Odd? Are you a scaredy-cat?"

I ignored him, knowing he was just trying to get me to come down so that he could try and finish me off.

From my vantage point, I risked a glance over at the Tower. Aelita was squaring off against Beta in the air, the clone having grown a set of dragon-like wings to rival Aelita's angel ones. Ulrich and Yumi were facing Delta, who seemed to be doing pretty well against two opponents at once.

No matter where I looked, Alpha and Epsilon were both missing. I could understand Epsilon staying back wherever Xana is right now like Jérémie does with us, but I didn't see much of a reason for Alpha to be missing…

"Come on scaredy-cat, come down here and face me like a man!"

* * *

**I'm pretty sure there are a few plotholes in this one...after the next chapter I'm going to make an effort to actually plan my writing before I write it. Normally I'll just get a basic idea of what I want to happen and think important parts of it out in my head, then write them down, extend it and submit. _Then _I realise I've left out important stuff, for example I initially intended to have Ulrich fighting William but I forgot to actually show his return to Xana, so he wouldn't be on her team just yet...or something :/  
Also I forgot to make Odd apologise to Jeremie too.  
****Anyway, I'll try harder next time.**

**So I don't have those Dark Warrior pictures/character profiles done yet but I should have them done by my next update. People keep interrupting me on YIM and in real life...I apologise D:**


	18. Sudden Realisations

We were getting nowhere slowly. The Dark Warriors were putting up a good fight against the others, keeping Aelita from the Tower. Gamma couldn't reach me from down on the ground, and Delta was facing Yumi and Ulrich at the same time. So really the only thing in between Aelita and the Tower was Beta.

The two of them were swooping around performing incredible aerial manoeuvres while dodging energy fields shot by one another. This would be fun.

I raised my right arm and aimed carefully, waiting for when Beta would stop between dodges. When the chance came, I fired two arrows, both hitting one of her wings, "Laser arrow!"

She fell from the sky with a scream I could even hear at this distance. I smirked as Aelita turned around in confusion. I waved my arms around, probably looking like a dork, trying to get her to go to the Tower. She got the message, flying off towards it. I'm pretty sure she made it inside, but I couldn't tell.

"Release!"

I was knocked off balance before I could check by a red beam of light rushing past my face. Gamma looked up from in front of me and took his chances with the steep rock face, using his swords to help him keep his grip. He bowled me over the other side, slamming me against another rock. I grabbed onto it before I fell, hanging upside-down from it.

Gamma stuck his landing on the ground below, "Oh come _on_! Are you afraid to fight me, or what?" He lifted up one of his swords, pointing the blade at me. Gradually the sword developed a red glow, getting brighter by the second. That must've been what knocked me off-balance before…

"Release!"

I took my chances and jumped down onto the ground just as the red beam fired right where I'd previously been.

No sooner had it disappeared, I found myself being thrown around in all directions, finally ending up on the ground with various cuts all over me. Why I had thought he'd stick to ranged attacks, I don't know. But it was a stupid thing to think.

Said bad guy then appeared in front of me, brandishing his sword, "That," he chuckled, "Was pathetic!"

"Odd, you've only got thirty life points left!"

"And where have you been all this time?" Jérémie had been so quiet I'd thought he'd disappeared; of course he always turns up at a time like this.

"Sorry, I had my hands full. William just appeared in the scanner room and Xana virtualised him to stop Aelita! Beta's back up now too."

"Oh, rats…" Xana's really intent on trying to stop us now, "Do you know what the attack is?"

"No, I think it's something on the other side of the world but I can't be sure."

"Are you two done blabbing yet, or am I interrupting you? Why don't you ask about the weather while you're at it?" Gamma was tapping his foot impatiently.

I shrugged, "Why not? Hey Jérémie, how's the weather up there? Nice and sunny down here!"

"I'm kinda busy right now, Odd…"

Oh, right he's dealing with William. Still, it pissed Gamma off and that was good enough for me.

He stepped forward, frowning, "You think you're so smart…"

"Actually, no."

_William smirked as he grounded Aelita, her wings disappearing as she tumbled across the ground._

"_You thought it was over, you thought we were gone. But now we're back more powerful than ever and your precious _daddy_ isn't here to save you! There's nothing any of you can do to stop us now!"_

_With a swift swing of his sword, William shot an arc of energy towards Aelita, who was begging him to stop. Her efforts were in vain as the energy knocked her off the edge and she plummeted towards the Digital Sea below._

"…are so big, but I'm going to let you know right now, Odd della Robbia, that _I_ am the greatest warrior that ever lived!"

Gamma was right up in my face. Wait, since when did he get there? I shook my head to bring me out of my stupor. I hadn't seen anything like that in a while…was that…

"Don't shake your head!" Next thing I knew, I was being kicked back a few metres onto the ground, "Oh, I get it. You're jealous, aren't you?"

"Why-"

"You're so ashamed to be in the presence of someone like me that you refuse to accept that I'm actually bothering to deal with you at all!"

What is with this guy? That's not what I'm trying to say. Obviously his ego is too inflated to see that I really don't care. Although, this could be a good thing. After what I saw earlier, I figured I couldn't stay long.

Slowly I began to raise one arm, aiming the glove at his chest. I'd rather have been able to get a headshot in but I couldn't aim any higher without raising his suspicion and distracting him from his self-obsessive rant.

I'm pretty sure he was talking about how the others should respect him or something, completely absorbed in trying to teach me a lesson about how supposedly great he is. Slowly but surely, my aim reached its mark, and I promptly fired three arrows in his direction. The sound of the blasts caused him to look up in surprise, but it was too late. His form started to disintegrate from the feet up.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I think I was actually more pleased to be free of his egotistic speeches than his attacks, and that's saying something.

That aside, I had to get to Aelita before William could.

I jumped up and sprinted to the place I'd saw in my…vision. It was a vision. There was only one way I could ever have visions on Lyokô, but it wasn't possible anymore. They felt the same though, like I was there but I wasn't really there.

Was that really Future Flash?

When I got there, Jérémie had yet more bad news, "Odd, Aelita's in trouble!" Yeah, I already knew that… "Yumi and Ulrich were both devirtualised. The other Dark Warriors are lurking around somewhere, you'd better be careful!"

"Got it, Einstein."

Where could they possibly be lurking around here? All it was was a massive deserted plateau with a few rocks here and there. I think I'd rather get to William and Aelita before I could find out.

It wasn't long before I spotted the two near the edge of the sector. Aelita had brought her wings out again while William attempted to shoot her out of the sky. I stopped and raised my arm, aiming for William. The beauty of long-range fighting is that you don't have to run right up to the enemy in order to attack. It gives the element of surprise and also means you can stay away from swords and the like.

Two shots in quick succession caught William's attention and he turned to face me. Aelita took her chance and flew straight to the Tower. She made it inside without any problems this time.

I looked back to William to find he'd disappeared. Well, not completely. He'd turned into a form of black smoke zigzagging its way across the ground. I didn't even bother to shoot at him this time as I knew from experience that attacking him while using Super Smoke wouldn't have any effect.

When he reformed a few metres in front of me, I wasn't expecting him to not have had his sword. I stayed on my guard, though, keeping one arm up in case he tried to pull anything.

He didn't come closer either, standing at a short distance.

He tilted his head to one side, "You can't win, you know. Not this time."

"Oh?" I scoffed, "And what makes this time so different?"

He shrugged slightly, "At the moment, no party knows what's going on. But we have the equipment, we can find out. On the other hand, all you have is that lousy piece of junk you call a Supercomputer."

"What do you mean, 'find out what's going on'? Xana's making a comeback and we're trying to stop her, that's all there is to it!" The Tower's glow changed to a blue one, Aelita had deactivated it.

"Oh, that's where you're wrong, Odd. There's much more to it than that."

"Oh yeah, like what?" I doubt he'll tell me, but it's worth a shot.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He's not going to tell me.

"Well yeah, that's why I asked."

He took a few paces forward until he was standing right in front of me, "All I can tell you is that it has something to do with the person you're seeing in your nightmares."

I jumped slightly but tried to keep the shock off my face, how could he have known that?

"So the bad news for you is that now you're caught up in the middle of this." He smirked, "Good luck."

Before I could say anything, something hit me hard in the back. The force sent me flying forwards onto the ground beside where William stood. I looked back as I felt myself disappear to find Beta and Delta standing there laughing.

It was the last sound I heard until the scanner doors opened.

I caught myself before I could fall out and the cold reality hit me. What William had said was right; if I could have dreams – nightmares – about the future, Xana would obviously want to use it as a tool to gain an advantage over us. As for how she found out, she must've spied on us while we talked about it. It couldn't be that hard if she could control technology. We'd have to be more careful about what we discuss from now on…

But to get so deeply involved in this fight, knowing the outcome before it even happens, I'm in way over my head.

"Odd, are you ok?"

Aelita roused me from my thoughts, a worried look on her face. I nodded, "Yeah, just wondering how I could've been devirtualised like that."

She nodded slowly in turn, looking as though she didn't fully believe me. Heck, I wouldn't believe me either if I were her.

"Come on, we should get back up to the lab." I started walking towards the lift, but Aelita didn't follow.

"Odd?"

I turned to face her, "Hm?"

"If there's anything troubling you, you know you can tell me, right?"

"Heh, am I really that obvious?" Aelita's look of worry didn't falter, so I smiled at her, "Ok, thank you…Princess."

The pink-haired girl relaxed slightly at my use of her nickname before returning the smile.

**

* * *

**

**ZOMG! Review incentive!**

**Good news, guys! I finished my Dark Warriors pictures! So all you have to do now is click that Review link down there and say whatever you feel like, and I'll send you the links :D**

**Also let it be noted that I'm not being obsessive about reviews, I'm just promoting my artwork :3**

**I'm sorry it's taking so long to post these, I'm having problems keeping up with school work **_**and**_** art **_**and **_**this, plus I'm so tired right now…but I hope I'll get better over the holidays in a few weeks.**

**Fear my horrible action-scene-writing-skills!**

**By the way, Gamma is going to rethink his "Release!" catch phrase thing, but it was the best I could come up with on the spot o_o; It adds more to his character later, anyway. I made him seem like a stubborn kid…**

**Until next time~**


	19. Jérémie Learns to Paint

"Where were you, Einstein? I was dying down there!"

Jérémie swivelled his chair around to face us as Aelita and I walked from the lift, "Sorry, Xana cut our communications off. I couldn't get it back up until it was too late."

Well at least nobody heard what William had said to me. He could've been bluffing, although given the circumstances it doesn't seem likely, but I'm going to need some more time to dwell on it before I mention it to the others.

"Did anything important happen?"

Drat, more lying. I hate doing this to them, "Nope, just more of William's gloating about how we'll be defeated and Xana will take over the world, yadda yadda."

The genius turned back to the computer screens, "It just seems strange…why would Xana cut us off for something silly like that?"

I shrugged.

As Jérémie began typing again I noticed everything was abnormally quiet. Ulrich and Yumi were keeping their distance from each other, maybe something happened on Lyokô. Sissi was sitting against a wall staring at the floor, looking distracted. She hadn't been her normal self since she got involved. What would've happened if she'd never have found out? Would she still be the way she used to be?

And finally Aelita was staring at me. I almost jumped when I realised, I'm guessing she had been doing that for a while. She was probably still upset about how I was keeping everything to myself, but she'd done the same thing when she was having problems fitting in on Earth when we first rematerialised her.

She obviously noticed I was staring back, as she moved her gaze over to Jérémie. He still hadn't apologised, and he didn't look too intent on doing so as he typed away at the keyboard. I don't understand; why doesn't he just make up with her already?

Suddenly he jumped, as though he'd remembered something important – about time – and leapt up out of his seat, stretching.

"I think we should finish up here for the day, there's nothing much else to do. You with me, guys?"

Nobody spoke in response, we each just gave a brief nod and headed to the lift. Ulrich and Yumi were still trying their best to avoid each other. Sissi remained seated so I went over to nudge her.

"Hey, we're leaving."

"Hm?" she looked up at me, confused for a brief moment before nodding, "Ok."

She quickly got up and headed to the lift with the others, avoiding my gaze. I really did wonder what had been wrong with her lately; this silence was so unlike her. I'd have to bring it up later, but not in front of the others.

I quietly followed her and cringed at the lack of noise aside from the lift's ascension. I wanted badly to speak up, to start a conversation about anything at all, but I needed to avoid them asking questions about what had happened on Lyokô. Not until I figured it out myself.

Although I must say Aelita's reminder was pretty tempting.

_"If there's anything troubling you, you know you can tell me, right?"_

Going it alone would be a daunting task, especially with what's at stake. I still had no idea why I was the one who had to put up with all these nightmares and being Xana's new target, but it had better be a pretty darn good reason.

Of course, part of the reason was the visions, and that other me I see in my nightmares, but what does it all mean?

I felt a hand on my shoulder as the lift doors opened on the ground floor and turned to find its owner. I was mildly surprised to find it was Jérémie's. We waited behind until the others had climbed back up the ropes before he started to beam.

"I just came up with a brilliant way to apologise to Aelita!" he looked ecstatic. Judging by this, I'd say that this idea of his was much more than a simple 'sorry'.

I smiled back, "That's great, what is it?"

He leaned forward and whispered something into my ear. I grinned, "You're a genius, Einstein! She'll love that!"

"Great! But I need you to do a favour for me."

* * *

I tossed the pencil case onto my bed, along with a couple of sheets of paper and an eraser. Jérémie was planning to tell Yumi, Ulrich and Sissi about the plan while I used my break from class to get to work on my part of it. Jérémie had asked if I could draw two pictures of our group, one on Earth and the other on Lyokô. Sort of like what I did for his thirteenth birthday. Then he'd get me to show him how to colour it digitally, and he'd give it to Aelita as a present.

But that wasn't the entire plan; Jérémie was going all-out on this one just to make it up to her.

I settled down on the bed and prepared to work for a couple of hours at the most. Good sketches take time to do, you know?

Resting the paper on a notebook on my lap, I chose an H grade pencil, one of the lighter ones, and got to work on the basic poses.

Kiwi was asleep at the end of my bed, snoring very lightly. Of course I'd have to include him in the picture, no way I'd ever forget my little diggety dog.

Come lunch time tomorrow Aelita would be getting the surprise of her life. Good surprise, that is.

There was a knock at the door just as I finished erasing the last sketchy parts of my pictures. I'd decided to draw the Earth picture with the clothes we wore now, and the Lyokô one with our old clothes. Why? So that I could put a picture of Jérémie there. I didn't know if he'd upgraded his suit or not when he did ours, although I'm guessing it'd look like Epsilon with different colours, and if I'd have drawn him old style and us new style it would've looked strange.

"Hm?" I answered with pencil in mouth.

Jérémie entered, closing the door behind him. It was the start of lunch time, he would've run up here from class.

He looked giddy, "Are they done yet?"

I nodded, putting the pencil down, "Yup, they're all yours now, Jéré."

He took the pieces of paper when I handed them to him, trembling with excitement, "Wow, these are amazing, Odd!"

I shrugged, "Of course, what else did you expect?" Ah, good old modesty.

"I'm going to go scan these right now!"

With that, he raced down the hallway and down the stairs.

I smirked, "Love makes fools of us all..."

* * *

Jérémie had skipped lunch in order to start working on colouring the pictures. I, however, had sat with the others while we ate and taken Jérémie's share, with his permission, of course. I'd advised him earlier on what program he should use and he'd been busy searching for a downloadable version when I left.

When I came back in he was working on the flat colours like I'd told him to.

I knelt down by his desk, "It's going great, nice job."

He adjusted his glasses, "Thanks...could you show me how to do the shading now so that you don't have to watch me the whole time?"

"Yeah, sure. Always start first with a new layer, on top of the flat colours." He did as directed and I started pointing to various tools, "Use the Select tool to highlight an area to be shaded first, then fill it in with a darker colour."

"Like that?"

"Yup." I still found it weird that he was managing all of this without a graphics tablet, "Now use the Water and run it along the edge of the shadow to give it a softer edge."

He did just that, creating a gradient instead of a cel shade.

I smiled, "Great, now here's what I do for the hair..."

I lost track of time as I watched him paint. I thought I heard the bell signalling the end of lunch ring, but I was too tired to realise it.

* * *

It was midnight, the moon shone brightly in the sky and the air was chilly. There wasn't a cloud in sight as we gazed upon the still forest.

I turned to the girl beside me, almost identical to my sister. Her long blonde hair was let down, blown back slightly by the small wind. She wore a long white dress, elegant compared to my day clothes. She was sitting perched on the railing of the science building roof, easily keeping her balance as if it were second nature.

Then she looked at me, my gaze caught up in her eyes. One green, one purple. Like mine. I couldn't look away.

_So many secrets..._

Questions not yet answered, more and more questions leading to deep, dark secrets that are known to few.

_Secrets that can only be revealed with time..._

But she could be one of the keys to unlocking those secrets kept from us...

I sat up abruptly, slightly shaken. Rubbing my head I frowned, "What a weird dream..."

"What happened?"

I jumped, relaxing when I recognised Jérémie's voice. Apparently I'd fallen asleep on his floor, and it was now dark outside.

"What time is it?"

"Seven thirty. You still haven't answered my question."

I could've tried to change the topic to how well he was doing on the picture, but knowing Jérémie he'd change it right back again. He looked really determined to make me answer.

I sighed, giving in, "It wasn't like the other ones, I was standing on top of the science building at midnight and someone else was there, she looked kind of like my sister, but I can't be sure." Unless Adèle had grown her hair super long and started wearing contacts since I last saw her, I couldn't be sure if that girl in my dream really was my sister.

"Did anything...happen aside from that?"

I shrugged slowly, "These weird thoughts kept popping into my head," I tried to remember clearly, "'_So many secrets...secrets that can only be revealed with time..._'...you have any idea what that means?"

"Nope, but it looks like time will be the key. Just wait it out and we should know eventually."

Keys... "Oh, yeah. There was also something about that girl being a key to unlocking the secrets? I don't know."

"Strange..." Jérémie turned back around to his computer, "Anyway, thanks for telling me. Time is the key." He started working on the pictures again.

Time is the key...why does that seem so important? It could have something to do with the return trips, or maybe Future Flash. It does it let me see into the future, which is to do with time.

Nah, I doubt it. I guess we'll just have to wait it out like Jérémie said.

* * *

It was finally lunch time on the day of Aelita's surprise, and I was in charge of getting everything ready during class. The others just had to keep her away from her room until it was ready. I had until the start of lunch before they'd bring her up, and I was almost finished.

Éclair was sitting with Kiwi on Aelita's bed, watching curiously as I put streamers around the room. She even walked up to one that was dangling down above the desk and started batting at it.

I laughed, picking her up, "Silly thing." Putting her back on the bed, I stood back and admired my work.

It wasn't much, but there were now a few streamers decorating the walls and a large banner across the back, _**Bon Anniversaire, Aelita!**_ She's going to love this, I just know it.

I'd tried to push thoughts about that girl out of my head for the time being, I didn't want to upset Aelita by acting mopey all the time. Still, I figured I should definitely head home for the coming holidays just in case it was Adèle.

I heard voices outside, they belonged to my friends. I must've missed hearing the bell earlier.

The door was opened from the outside and the five walked in, Aelita blindfolded.

"Can I see yet?"

"Almost, just wait for one second."

Yumi held the blindfold while the others came to join me on the other side of the room. Kiwi started barking a welcome and Éclair began winding around Aelita's legs, making her a little unsteady.

Ulrich nodded to Yumi and she removed the blindfold.

"Happy birthday, Aelita!"

She gasped, a large smile spreading across her face, "Oh, wow! Guys, this is so wonderful! Thank you so much!"

Jérémie blushed, "I was originally planning it for another date, but I figured now would be as good a time as any other. I'm sorry about what I said or did before…"

"Apology accepted." Aelita beamed.

Sissi dove for the pile of presents on the bed, she seemed back to her usual self now, "Present time!" she grabbed a box wrapped in pink paper from the pile, "Open mine first!"

"Ok!" Aelita took the box and opened it, looking in awe as she pulled its contents out. It was a knee-length long-sleeved red dress covered with a sequin pattern.

Aelita still looked shocked, "Wow, oh you didn't have to get me something like this, really!"

"Yes I did," Sissi smiled, "Now you can look like a real princess!"

She held the dress in front of her, spinning around and watching the skirt fly out, "Oh, thank you so much."

"And what dress would be complete," Ulrich passed Yumi another box to give to Aelita, "without accessories?"

Inside was a pair of flat-heeled red shoes and a smaller box holding a pink flowery necklace.

She laughed with joy and gave Yumi a hug, "Oh, thank you thank you thank you!"

The Japanese girl smiled, "Ulrich and I pooled our money to buy them for you."

I passed Jérémie the last present, already knowing what was inside. It was the picture we'd worked together on, now framed and wrapped all ready for her to open.

Well it certainly seems like Jérémie and I have gotten over our little tiff.

"Here," he held it out to her, "Odd and I worked on this together."

She pulled off the paper and gasped again, admiring the picture. At the moment she was looking at the one of us on Earth.

"Ok, now turn it over."

She looked confused for a moment before obliging and turning it over. We'd taken out the back of the frame so that the Lyokô picture could be viewed by turning it around.

She put it down on the table, tears forming in her eyes, "...I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything." Jérémie leaned forward and kissed her.

Needless to say everyone was surprised, especially Aelita. At first her eyes widened in shock, but then she closed them. This was about the same time as I turned away to give them some privacy.

Jérémie was the first one to pull away, and he didn't even freeze up afterwards like he normally did.

"Happy birthday, Princess."

* * *

**Yes I'm still alive! Ha.**

**Sorry this took so long, I've been busy and my laptop was taken away and I got sick and stuff, but it's here now so rejoice!**

**Who's that mysterious girl? Is she really his sister? What are these secrets and what does time have to do with it? Why am I asking these questions? Will I ever start updating more often? I don't know, I'm tired.**

**In the meantime, I _have _been working. I wrote another small CL fic called Girls and Boys starring Odd (there's a surprise) so go check it out if you haven't already :)**


	20. Clones! They're Everywhere!

"How's your shoulder?"

"Oh, much better." I smiled at Aelita, "Yolande took the bandages off this morning."

She smiled back and we both went back to finishing our breakfasts. That wasn't the only good news, either; I'd had a normal dream last night. A _normal _one. Well, normal as in I didn't have a nightmare about Xana or Kadic in ruins. No, last night I dreamed that Cybermen were attacking the school, and my friends and I had to lead a student revolt to stop them. There was also something about a car with two fronts instead of a front and a back, which I didn't quite get.

But who cares? It was a normal dream, and that's all that mattered to me.

Ulrich chuckled from across the table, "Congratulations Odd on earning your reputation as a kid who runs away from scary birds!" The end of his sentence was accented with 'scary' hand signs.

I pointed a fork at him angrily, "Hey! Would you rather I'd told her the truth?"

"No, but it's still funny."

Admittedly those scratches had been an accident. If I hadn't have pushed Alpha off me during that attack, I would've came out without it. But who knows what he would've done if I hadn't reacted that way? At least it's almost completely healed now.

"I can't believe he willingly went back to Xana…"

Everyone at the table went quiet at Yumi's comment. She'd been sitting in the corner quietly since she arrived, almost unnoticed. Looking up at my best friend, it was obvious he was jealous. You could practically see steam coming out of his ears.

I broke the silence, "Well…the camera footage showed that she hadn't completely let go control of him yet, he could've been forced to return to Lyokô." No response, "You never know."

My attempt at cheering everyone up failed; they all kept staring off in different directions, lost in their own thoughts.

We'd tried to avoid the subject of William's return to Xana since his turning up on Lyokô during our last mission. Aelita's birthday party yesterday lunch time had livened things up a bit, but we couldn't just completely forget about William.

"How come you lot are all down in the dumps?"

I looked up in surprise upon hearing Sissi's voice, as confident as ever. She seemed back to her old self, which is a relief.

"It's a lovely day outside, cheer up, why don't you?"

Yumi had to struggle to stay seated, looking ready to jump up and raise her voice with anger, "One of our friends just got taken to the side of the enemy, and you're obsessing over the weather?"

She appeared oblivious to Yumi's anger, "Who, William?" She took a seat next to Ulrich, only ticking him off more, "But I saw him just this morning."

"What?" the look on her face turned to surprise, before going gloomy again, "It's probably a Xana spectre out to spy on us…"

I tried to change the subject, "How come you're so happy all of a sudden, Sissi?" Not that it was a bad thing, but it was a pretty quick recovery.

"I had to overcome some obstacles of my own, but I'm fine now." She smiled.

"Good morning!"

"Morning…" we all said simultaneously to William.

Wait, William? We all looked up in surprise as we realised who was greeting us.

"How did you get here," Yumi asked forcefully, "And why?"

"How'd I get here? I walked, of course. And I'm here to have breakfast." He gestured to the tray of food he was holding, "Is there something wrong with that?"

His tone of voice sounded airy, not like the normal William at all. No, it was Clone William.

In order to cover for William's absence at school while he was under Xana's control last time, Jérémie had programmed a spectral clone to take his place on Earth. Unfortunately the program wasn't perfect, and the clone was substantially dumber than the real William. A real airhead and completely oblivious to most things, he may not have imitated William very well but he was still a laugh to be around.

Sissi shrugged, "See? I told you he was here."

"No," I shook my head, "That's not William."

"Huh?"

Aelita explained for her, "It's a clone Jérémie programmed to take William's place while he was trapped on Lyokô last time. You remember a few months ago when William was acting all stupid?"

"Yeah."

"That was the clone. There's a bug in his intelligence program, obviously Jérémie still hasn't fixed it yet."

Meanwhile the clone was standing idly at the side of the table, humming to himself. He didn't seem at all uncomfortable with the conversation at hand, even if it was deeming him not human. Actually it's kind of strange.

Aelita continued, "Jérémie must've reactivated him this morning. That's probably why he left so early."

Satisfied with the verdict, everyone returned to eating or staring out the window or whatever else they were doing. Sissi still looked a little surprised though. The clone took this as his exit cue, wandering off to another table by himself.

Ulrich checked his watch, "Jérémie's going to be late for PE again."

I sighed, "Jim's really going to kill him one of these days." Not literally, I mean he'd punish him severely. Unless he was possessed by Xana, then he might try to kill Jéré.

Everyone finished, we headed as a group to dump our trays and head outside.

There, unfortunately, we were greeted by another clone. Well, not quite greeted; he was leaning on a nearby tree trunk flirting with none other than Millie Solovieff.

All our jaws practically dropped to the floor, although admittedly that kind of behaviour was expected from Jérémie's clone. But oh boy was Jérémie going to be in trouble now…

Millie was in sixième*****, three whole years below us. Even I would never stoop that low. And not only that, she was the journalist for the Kadic News. Whatever that clone was doing now, it'd surely make it into the paper in no time flat. Luckily Tamiya wasn't there, for once, to take a photo of it.

Sometimes I think it'd be easier if Jérémie just came to PE himself for once. Speaking of, the clone was dressed in Jérémie's normal grey tracksuit, smiling at the younger girl.

"So you wanna go out sometime?"

"Wow, really?" She looked hopeful for a second, then shook her head and looked to the ground, "But aren't I too young for you?"

The clone smirked, "No way, babe. Heck, I'd date you if you were even younger! Age doesn't matter to me."

Millie looked back up again, slightly confused, as Yumi stormed over to the two. It's no wonder she's confused, our Einstein suddenly turning into a flirt with younger girls? As if. He's too nervous to even talk to Aelita about relationships, let alone try and pick up someone else.

But before she could respond, Yumi had grabbed the clone by the hand and dragged him back to us.

"What do you think you were doing flirting with Millie like that?"

"What's the matter, hon'? I didn't do nothing wrong."

Aelita frowned, "Exactly."

"What was that, pinkie?" He looked confused.

"You just used a double negative, implying that you did, in fact, do something wrong."

He shrugged casually, "Whatever. What's the deal with you guys? Someone die or something?" The clone also acted a lot more 'cooler' than Jérémie. It seemed so…wrong.

Sissi didn't notice anything wrong though, "That's exactly what I was wondering earlier!"

"Someone might as well have," Yumi cut in, "_William_, remember?"

I took a step back out of habit, Yumi was angry. And that was not a good thing.

The clone tilted his head to one side, "Aw why are you still so worked up about that? He's gone now, you should move on to someone new. And if you're still upset, I hope this can be a shoulder to cry on." He gestured to one of his shoulders and Yumi groaned.

"Just forget it." She turned on her heel and walked off, "That clone's a lost cause."

Ulrich followed quickly behind, still upset about two boys threatening their relationship.

I placed my hand on his shoulder, speaking quietly enough so that Yumi wouldn't hear, "Hey buddy, they're just clones. Computer programs. Neither of them are going to take Yumi away from you."

"Yeah, that's what they want you to think."

I sighed, "You're paranoid…"

"I am not!" he raised his voice, getting strange glances from the others as we walked.

I waited for them to turn away before continuing, "What's your problem?"

He stopped, fumbling in his pockets, "Guys I left my phone behind. I'm going to go back and get it."

The others nodded in acknowledgement and I figured out what he was doing, heading back to the cafeteria with him. He didn't really leave it behind; he just didn't want other people to hear what he was going to say, so it must be important.

"Look, I already told you before. I thought we'd be able to become more than just friends after Xana was gone. William didn't seem to be bothering us – although he _was_ busy helping Xana get back – but now that he's returned to Lyokô she's more worried about him than ever! I wish she'd just accept that he'll be fine until we get him back, and concentrate on what's right in front of her."

"Maybe if she can't see it herself, you should show it to her."

He looked up abruptly, confused.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, "Tell her that there's nothing to worry about. Comfort her. Be there for her…Wow, I sound all wise all of a sudden."

He laughed, "Wise? We can't have that happen! But I guess you're right; I'll talk to her about it later. Thanks, Odd!"

I grinned, "Hey, what are good buddies for?"

And with that, we headed back to where the others were, sitting on our usual benches in the quad. Neither of the clones were there. Wasn't it a bad idea to have two clones active at once? I could've sworn we found out before that doing that would make the Towers Jérémie activated for them more vulnerable to attack. He must have a good reason for it, but I'm not taking either of the clones to the infirmary again. Not after what happened the last times.

They seemed to be having a normal conversation when we approached, no talk of Xana.

"What do you think we're going to do in PE this morning?"

"I don't know, but I hope it's something fun."

"Yeah," Ulrich agreed, "something to cheer us up after all that's happened recently."

"Aw but that won't be fair! I'm not allowed to participate because of my shoulder, and if you do something fun I'll miss out! Jim should make you do something boring." I smirked.

"Oh, yeah," Sissi turned to me, "What are you going to do all day?"

I shrugged, "Might as well come watch-"

Ulrich pointed at me, "Ha! But if you come watch something boring, it won't provide any entertainment for you either."

"Whatever. At least I won't be the one doing it."

The first bell of the day rang and Yumi said her somewhat distracted goodbyes. I walked with the others to the gym, waiting in the change room with Ulrich so that I knew where they'd be going.

Turns out they'd be inside, playing dodgeball.

Unfair.

I glared over at Ulrich as Jim laid down the rules, "I'm sure you're all familiar with the game of dodgeball, what with all the American cartoons they're showing on TV nowadays…however this won't be like one of those games. There will be no teams, one-on-one, every man – or woman – for himself. Er…or herself. It's very simple to understand; you throw the ball at other people and dodge the balls thrown at you, hence the name. You get hit, you're out, sit cross-legged on the floor where you were hit. There will be no tackling, and if you're hit above the knees it doesn't count."

There was a series of whines from the class.

"Now, now, I'm sure you'd want to get back at someone for doing something-or-other to you, or just for fun, and by all means go ahead and aim for their face, but it won't get them out."

Aw, rats. I would've loved to have been able to hit some of these guys in the face, but even though I'd be throwing with my opposite arm there was always the danger of getting hit in the shoulder. Plus I don't think Jim would let me, Yolande had probably told him by now.

"You can use the entire expanse of the gym, but no going through doors. Once you're out, the only way to get back in again is to sit cross-legged and catch a passing ball with one hand, and then hold it up for me to see. There will be no teams or 'friends', and no throwing balls deliberately to someone sitting down. Right, go spread out ready to start!"

The rest of the class dispersed excitedly to different areas of the gym, standing away from one another. I think this is the first time we've ever played one-on-one dodgeball. Unfortunately I had to sit it out on the bleachers.

Aelita cast me a sympathetic look before finding her own spot, and I shrugged back at her.

Jim blew the whistle and threw a single red ball into the mass of students. A few people scrambled for it, dashing away as one person emerged victorious, aiming for the others. A few more balls were thrown in and the madness began. Students were running all over the place dodging between balls and other students, the occasional one sitting down and looking around anxiously for a passing ball.

Gradually the number of people out began to get bigger, and only the best players were left standing, the two most noticeable of them were none other than Ulrich and Jérémie's clone. Some of the students had forgotten to try and get themselves back in again because they were too astonished at the clone's skill. He was waltzing around the floor calmly, picking up any balls that came his way and throwing them back, or simply dodging swiftly out of the way and letting them sail past.

Ulrich was a whole different story. He was running around, leaping over balls and scooping them up to throw back. He was having the time of his life, and I'd lost yet another chance to compete with him. Darn Xana and her unpredictable attacks.

Eventually people started getting back in again, and there were a lot more people running around again. Checking my watch, I found the game had been going on for 20 minutes, and I was becoming bored, so I decided to go for a walk outside.

I don't think anyone noticed as I climbed down from the bleachers and went outside, sure I had a ball or two almost hit me but I don't think they knew who they were aiming at; some of them looked like they were on an adrenaline rush.

It was cool outside compared to in the gym, with a slight breeze blowing past. I didn't like being by myself, it gave me too much time to think. About Xana, her human form, and that guy in my nightmares. That girl now too…

"Things are moving too fast, why can't everything just slow down and wait for me to catch up?"

"Sometimes life just isn't fair."

I jumped and whipped around at the sound of Gamma's voice.

Too late, he was already behind me again and everything went black.

**

* * *

**

*** Sixième – in the French school system, it's the equivalent of our year/grade six. I'm not sure if Millie should be in the year above because of time line confusions, but I'm just going to stick to sixième.**

******Zomg an update! Sorry, I've been busy, as usual. Plus I had no idea what to put in this chapter, which...isn't a good thing :I Still, I came up with something, yay! It originally wasn't going to be a cliffhanger, but 2700 words is kinda big for me, so I cut it off there like the meanie I am~ Weird title, I know.**

**I've been focusing a lot on future chapters, which involve Replikas (spoilers! :O) but they need to rebuild the Skid first, so in other words I need to force myself to takle what's right in front of me before I get to the parts I've wanted to write for a while. The super-important ones.**

**I want to write another story to accompany this, but again it'd be major spoilers so I'd have to wait until I reach a certain point in this one before starting it, which is a bummer...eh, I can always just write it and not post. Muahahaha!**

**Oh, and that Cybermen attacking the school thing? I dreamed that the morning I started writing this, and decided to give him a break from my usual torturing xD**


	21. Sector Five

I don't know how long it was until I woke up, but I'm guessing it had been a while. The pain from Gamma's assault had worn off, and I didn't need to open my eyes to know I was on Lyokô. I could hear the low growls of a few Creepers over to my left, meaning I must've been in Sector Five.

I sat up slowly and looked around. The room I was in was a small one, only a few metres wide and deep. The rooms in Sector Five could get tens of times bigger than this. As usual, the entire room was the same shade of blue, save for myself and the stationary Creepers guarding the only way out. Actually Sector Five was quite boring in that respect, but only because it wasn't moving at the current time.

Sector Five was a very unique sector in that it changes every time you come back, the only parts of it not changing being the Arena, outside, lift and the Core Zone. It was the centre of Lyokô, the Core being the very heart of the virtual world. Destroy it, and you destroy Lyokô.

But as to what I was doing here, I didn't know.

Judging by our previous experiences though, I could probably work it out. Generally Aelita was the only one who got kidnapped and sent here alone, more recently to be thrown into the Digital Sea, but before that for the Scyphozoa.

And since I couldn't think of a reason why Xana would take me here instead of one of the other sectors in order to throw me into the Sea, the reason for my being here must've been the latter; the Scyphozoa.

I stood up abruptly, "What the heck would Xana want from my memory?"

Wait a minute, Jérémie should still be at the factory, maybe I could try and reach him, "Jérémie, are you there?"

"Sorry, Jérémie's not available at the moment. Can I take a message?"

It didn't take long for me to identify the source of the voice, whipping around with my arms stretched out in front of me ready to fire. But when I did, nothing happened but a small clicking noise from each glove signalling that I needed a reload.

This earned a smirk from Xana, leaning against a wall near the Creepers, "I couldn't take any risks."

I frowned, annoyed, "Yeah? Well if you're so sure you can beat me then why don't you give me a fighting chance?"

"Oh, I'm not here to fight." She shook her head, "I thought you'd already figured that part out."

Yeah, I did figure it out, but I was hoping I hadn't. It looks like she didn't fall for my distraction away from her real goal, either.

Her smirk didn't falter, "I just want to chat, for now."

"That sounds reassuring."

"I believe you wanted to know why I want your memory, Odd?"

I stayed silent, not even giving her the satisfaction of a small nod.

The virus continued anyway, standing up straight and walking towards me, "Well it's not just your memory I'm after." She tilted my chin up with one finger until I met her red gaze, "It's your powers I really want."

I shook her hand away, glaring. I should've guessed that was what she wanted.

"I mean, given the situation in which one of your enemies develops the ability to see the future, even after it had been removed, and it becomes so strong that it even gives you visions on Earth…wouldn't you do the same thing?"

"No."

"Oh, you're just saying that because the visions are yours in the first place."

I flattened my cat ears against my head, "No way! I wouldn't do it because I'm not some selfish monster like you!"

Xana's eyes widened, "But wouldn't it be amazing to see the outcome of our battle before it even happens? Of course, I already know who'll be the victor in our little war…" she gestured to herself, "But it would be fun to see your enemy's demise time and time again before the day comes."

I growled, "Need I remind you that I can't control it?"

She shrugged, the awestruck look not coming off her face, "I can find ways."

Great, now it sounds like she's about to make me join her in order to learn to control it. Well she'd better not even try, because I'm not interested. I don't want to learn to control Future Flash, I want to know who that guy in my nightmares is and what it all means, and I doubt Xana can help with either of those.

Still I argued, "It can't be done, it's impossible!"

All emotion disappeared from her face, "Take a look at your situation right now; prophetic nightmares, your powers are coming back from deletion. Tell me whether that was impossible or not."

I gave no response, she was right. Normal people don't experience things like that, and yet here we are.

"It was meant to be impossible, but it isn't, not for you. And I have no idea why. But we can find out."

Oh great, here it comes. She's trying to win me over by bribing me. That information could aid both our sides, but I wasn't falling for it.

"If you think I'm just going to hand myself over to the Scyphozoa, you're dead wrong!" I yelled.

She sighed, "Fine. We'll do this the hard way."

A gargled cry came out from the door Xana and her Creepers were guarding, and I knew what would come next. A tentacle stretched out from the doorway, followed by the rest of the Scyphozoa. It was a large purple and green jellyfish, where it got its name from. I think scyphozoa is a type of jellyfish. It didn't have any weapons or decent defence, but it wasn't built for fighting. Its tentacles could capture and paralyse their victim, making them defenceless against the Scyphozoa's main three memory-stealing tentacles. Xana had used it in the past to take the Keys to Lyokô from Aelita's memory and escape the Supercomputer.

Xana pretended to check her watch, "We'd better get this over and done with before your friends show up."

The Scyphozoa started to advance on me, and I took a few steps back. A plan formed in my mind and I really hoped that it would work. Even though I was unarmed, the Creepers shouldn't be a problem.

Here goes nothing.

Once the Scyphozoa had floated a few metres away from the door I made a run for it, ducking and weaving between its flailing tentacles. Obviously it wasn't expecting this kind of reaction, thinking I was trapped. Honestly I think it should've known better. Even if it is a giant jellyfish.

I swerved to the left to avoid Xana and the Creepers immediately opened their mouths to reveal the hidden canon inside, opening fire on me. I quickly dashed forward and leapt up onto the wall, climbing around the corner and dodging lasers.

As I jumped down into the corridor I heard Xana's angry cry, "After him!"

The corridor opened up into a much larger room at least six times the size of the previous one. And it was filled with Creepers. They were all over the walls a few metres from the ground. I dashed to one side on all fours to help avoid fire, and a few Creepers climbed to the ground to try and get a better shot in. I easily dodged the ones that had climbed down in front of me, almost receiving a couple of swings to the head from random Creeper arms.

I made it to the end of the room in no time, entering another small corridor. My acute hearing picked up the sound of the lift coming up in the distance, and I upped my speed so I wouldn't miss it.

I took a flying leap off the end of the platform, hoping I hadn't gotten my timing wrong. Thankfully the lift came at just the right time, catching me as I fell with a thud and lifting me up towards the higher levels.

I didn't bother getting up just yet, lying against the side of the moving platform and panting. While we didn't need air on Lyokô, it was just a normal reflex to pant after a long run or a hard fight. I did feel slightly fatigued though.

As the lift carried me to my destination, I found myself thinking about how weird the last few minutes had been. From all of the tens of Creepers in that room, I hadn't received even a single hit. Not one.

And even as highly I thought of myself, _nobody_ could get through that sort of situation without getting hit. Something was up.

Unfortunately though, I didn't have much time to ponder it because the lift had stopped in front of the door I was seeking. Getting up, I ran towards it as it opened, revealing the outside of the dome.

Sector Five was floating inside another dome which was made up of thousands and thousands of blue screens like the ones found in Towers. But they weren't the only things out there; some of Xana's monsters were created in 'nests' formed in the wall.

And it looks like they'd be appearing soon; I could see a couple of bulges appearing in the normally smooth sphere. Looks like Xana wasn't giving up so easily.

I was stuck. The only way out of Sector Five from the main area was a small platform stretching not too far out from the dome. And the only reasons you'd ever come out here were to access the panel at the end of the platform, to reach the Core Zone or to change sectors via the four data tunnels.

Escaping there, however – not a good idea.

I could hear more Creepers coming from behind me, and the nests were getting bigger. I couldn't climb down the outside of the dome, I needed to draw time. So the only way to go was up. Who knows, there might be something useful up there. I don't think we'd really checked before.

So I jumped up onto the wall, using my claws to pull myself up to the top. But I wasn't the only one who could climb; the Creepers could climb upside-down without any trouble. They had no problems following after me to wherever I was going.

I found myself having to dodge more lasers as I continued, some from the Creepers and some from the newly-hatched Mantas, large blue and white monsters that looked like, well, mantas.

I finally got to the top, still not having taken any hits.

Sighing I stood up, "I really missed fighting you guys. Don't you feel a little second-rate now that the Dark Warriors are here?"

My answer came in the form of a few lasers in my general direction, still not hitting me.

Lifting my arm, I tried again to get a few shots in myself, but it just resulted in that annoying clicking sound again. I really don't like that sound.

Ok, now I really think they're missing on purpose. Either that, or Xana had taken away all the power from her regular monsters to give to the Dark Warriors, because this was just pathetic.

From what I've seen in movies, they're probably trying to lure me somewhere, and they're not doing a very good job of it.

"Bored already? The fun's just beginning!"

William.

I turned slowly to face him, standing leaning on his sword not far away. The laser fire had stopped.

"I'd rather still be watching the dodgeball game."

He picked up his sword, "Oh, don't worry. I'll give you something to dodge."

William charged forward, swinging his sword around to try and hit me with the blunt edge. I easily ducked under it and backed off to another part of the roof.

Now it was plainly obvious what they were all doing; the Scyphozoa couldn't get to me if I wasn't actually on Lyokô. No, now they were trying to knock me down from the roof.

William kept coming at me with more swings, all of which I managed to dodge with ease and still keep my balance, not falling off the side.

Again I heard the giant jellyfish's cry, and turned to see Xana floating up alongside it.

"You can't escape us now, so just make this easy and give up."

Actually, I might just give them what they want.

Quickly I ran towards the edge, sliding down the side of the dome. Xana cried out again in rage, and suddenly the Mantas were on top of me, trying to break my fall. I jumped out of the way of all of them, still sliding down until there was nothing to slide on.

But I didn't freefall, no, there was nothing down there. Not even Digital Sea. In other words, not good. I'm not sure what does happen when you fall down into the mass of screens, but I'd rather not find out the hard way.

I dug my claws into the blue wall to stop my fall, turning around and using my momentum to climb to the bottom of the sphere. There was yet another barrage of lasers, trying to make me lose my grip. But I didn't falter, quickly reaching the entrance to the Core Zone.

I can safely say that no-one had ever tried to get down here this way, we'd always use vehicles. But since I don't have one of those on me, I had to make do with what I had.

After coming over a small 'hill' in the wall, there was a massive door. It was closing and shutting rapidly with loud bangs, assuring that only the fastest of monsters or vehicles could make it through safely.

But I didn't want to.

If Xana planned to keep me here until the Scyphozoa got me, then I'd just have to find my own way to get devirtualised. And it was right in front of me.

The monsters were closing in on me, I didn't have much time. But quite frankly this was a bit nerve-wracking. I was essentially going to commit suicide, only on a virtual world. It still hurt though, I knew from experience. But in the current situation I didn't really have a choice.

Taking a deep breath I launched forward, grabbing onto the door as it began to close shut again. I was lurched forward towards the centre and the edges of the rest of the door. This was going to hurt.

I let out a cry as I felt myself being crushed by the entrance, a feeling that quickly gave way to nothingness. The last thing I heard before I completely devirtualised was Xana's scream.

* * *

I hit the scanner room floor hard. As if it wasn't enough my body felt like it'd just been run over by a steamroller, now my head hurt too.

"Rough landing?"

I glared up at Gamma, now standing over me. Alpha was with him too.

"Where's Jérémie?" I leaned on the scanner to help me get up.

He smirked, Alpha just looked bored, "I don't think you're in the right position to be making demands."

"It wasn't a demand, it was a question."

"Same diff'."

"Not really…"

"Well if you're so keen to know where he is, then why don't you join him?"

"Sorry, not an option."

I'm not sure I've ever been so relieved to hear Ulrich's voice. Not only that, but he was with the others, including Jérémie. He looked a little stunned but other than that he was fine.

I managed a smile, "Actually, Ulrich, I think you bringing Jérémie here has just given Gamma what he wants."

Ulrich looked a little lost for words, "Yeah…well…whatever."

Meanwhile Gamma had put a hand to his ear, looking like he was listening to something. Suddenly he turned to his teammate and said, "Come on, this mission's over. We're going back." He turned to Ulrich, "But in no way does that mean you've won!"

In a flash of light, they were both gone, like the way Translated***** spectres would disappear.

"Are you alright?" Aelita asked.

I nodded, "Just a little dizzy. Here's a hint: never get crushed by the door to the Core Zone."

She smiled back, letting out a small giggle, "I'll try not to."

"How'd you know what happened?"

Sissi answered, "We noticed you were gone when class ended."

"I tried to call Jérémie," Yumi added, "But he didn't pick up. So we knew something was wrong."

Ulrich joined in, "Speaking of which, don't we have a Tower to deactivate?"

Jérémie shrugged, "I doubt Xana would've kept it active after that, but I'll go check just in case."

He was right, the Tower had deactivated itself.

* * *

*** Translation - The English dub called it Teleportation, but I thought it was boring (plus it was the name of Odd's power in Triple Trouble) so I opted for the French name.**

**About time I closed off that cliffhanger, no? Wow, twentieth chapter. Random fun fact: the prologue was written on February 14th, 2009. Chapter 1 was then written October 9th (Hey, that's the date in Jeremie's diary in Xana Awakens Part 1...). I wasn't going to continue it because I wrote a draft of it and it sucked. But now look at it, twenty chapters and a prologue. Wow.**

**And it's all thanks to you guys! Thanks so much for all your support and encouragement throughout the story, it's really appreciated! I love you guys. But we still have a long way to go, let's just hope I start updating more regularly XD**


	22. The Road to Recovery

"So Xana sent you to Sector Five?"

"Yeah."

"And the Scyphozoa went after you?"

"Yup."

"And you have no idea why?"

"That's right."

"Maybe we could hand him back over to it, then we'd be able to find out."

"Ulrich!"

I glared at my best friend from across the room, he just smiled back. Once we'd all gathered in the lab to discuss what happened, I'd been bombarded with questions about why I'd been brought to Lyokô. Normally it would be Aelita in my previous situation; kidnapped under everyone's noses and taken to Lyokô for one reason or another. Of course, I already knew why I'd been taken, Xana herself had told me. But the others…well, if I told them then they'd find out Future Flash had come back of its own accord, and Jérémie would want to look into it, and maybe even delete it again. I think it'd be a lot easier to keep quiet about it for now.

Jérémie looked thoughtful, "I'll look into it later, but for now we need to get back to class. Speaking of, I hope the clones didn't cause any trouble."

"Not much," Ulrich shrugged, "The William clone's no smarter than the old one, and your clone was up to his old tricks, flirting with Millie."

"Oh."

The others led the way to the lift as I turned to him, "Where were you before, while I was on Lyokô?"

"Hm?" he frowned for a moment before relaxing again, "Oh, right, you weren't there when I explained. Alpha jumped me while I wasn't paying attention, and he knocked me out. When I woke up later I was tied up, and Gamma was there at the console."

Honestly I should've been able to work that out myself. But it's not like I could think straight with Yumi staring at me like that…

The lift started up towards the ground floor.

It wasn't a death glare or anything, just a stare. But it was creepy nonetheless, and I wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to talk to me in private for whatever reason. I tried to pretend I didn't notice, looking off in another direction with a blank look on my face.

Time seems to pass more slowly when someone's giving you a look. It seemed like years before the lift finally reached its destination, opening with a creak. The others filed out quickly, discussing the results of the dodgeball game.

"Odd."

I froze, realising that Yumi had stayed standing in the lift.

"Can I talk to you in private for a minute?"

"Sure." I tried to keep the worry out of my voice, standing watching the others climb back up the ropes after casting a few confused glances back down at us. She must've figured something out, I just know it.

Yumi started talking once the others' footsteps disappeared across the bridge, "You've been lying a lot lately."

Ah, crap, "No I haven't."

She walked around in front of me, "And you're not very good at it, either."

I met her gaze, not saying anything. How long had she been noticing, I wonder? None of the others had said anything…

"What reason could you possibly have for lying to us?"

Maybe she's just bluffing, maybe she doesn't really know that I'm lying, "I don't know what you're talking about."

She clenched her fists, "Yes, you do! I can see it in your facial expressions!"

Drat, I forgot. I remember reading somewhere that you show off specific body language when you lie, and you'd have to be a professional liar or something in order to make it look like you were telling the truth. But you also had to be pretty skilled in order to identify the signs on someone else, so Yumi had to be pretty good.

I shrugged, "I wouldn't have any reason to lie to you."

She sighed and turned away so that her back was to me.

"We're supposed to work together as a group. We're supposed to share our worries and problems, and work through them together. We all help each other…or have you forgotten that?"

I felt my heart race. She sounded really passionate and slightly hurt about what she was saying, and it was all true. We were close friends, that's what friends do.

"No-"

"I – and the others – we _want_ to help you. But if you won't tell us what's wrong, then we can't do anything about it!" She turned back and fixed me with a stare.

"We helped Aelita before; to escape Lyokô, to recover her past, to find her father. We risked our lives just to save her." Her voice raised to a shout, "So if your stupid pride would get out of the way then we wouldn't have any qualms about figuring it out!"

Stupid pride.

"Where's the Odd who used to complain about every little thing? Who used to value his problems over everyone else's until things got dire? Well now your problems are the main concern, and we want the old Odd back."

She's quietened down to a whisper. I didn't like being like this, I wanted the old Odd back too. It would take a bit of work after everything, no more pretending. But maybe with the others' help it could happen for real.

"Back in Italy, before you moved to Kadic…"

"Hm?"

"Did you have a lot of friends?"

Her question caught me slightly by surprise. I had a large group of friends back home, but nothing could compare to the bond I had with the gang here, "Of course, why?"

"Then you don't know what it's like to be by yourself."

"Oh."

"You already know that Ulrich was my first real friend."

I nodded. It was true; Yumi hadn't had any friends until she met Ulrich at a sparring lesson around the time Jérémie first reactivated the Supercomputer. She hadn't told us why, but I sometimes thought it might've had something to do with the fact that she was Japanese, which is silly. I really don't understand racial discrimination.

Then again, it could be because she was reserved towards other people most of the time. I guess only Yumi knows the answer to that question.

"You have no idea how hard it was without anyone close to rely on. Sure, I had my family, but not having friends is a completely different matter. There are just some things that you can't tell your family."

"I sure understand _that_." Especially since the only other male in my family was my dad. Having five sisters was really annoying.

"It's really hard keeping your feelings bottled up inside for so long."

Alarm bells went off, "This is starting to sound like a girl talk."

Yumi glared back in response, "Erm…please continue."

Her face softened again, "Look, what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't hesitate to tell us what's wrong, because we'll help you out. We won't hold it against you or anything. Plus, if it has anything to do with defeating Xana for good this time, then it'd be for the best. And the quicker the problem's solved, the quicker it'll go away, right?"

I nodded slowly, contemplating what she said. I didn't have to shoulder this burden all by myself, and I could get it over with quickly. All I had to do was break out of this stupid depressive cycle and actually tell someone.

A knowing look appeared on Yumi's features as she turned to leave, "Call me if you need me."

I tilted my head to one side as she grabbed one of the ropes, "I've never seen this side of you before, Yumi."

"Nor I you. Everyone has sides they hardly let other people see, but sometimes it's for the best."

I smiled, "But it's a sign that they're your real friends, someone you can show your true colours to."

"True."

"Thanks, Yumi."

She smiled back before climbing up the rope and headed back to school. I followed soon after.

* * *

The silence in the forest gave me even more time to think. I never realised how depressed the gang was now that I wasn't making wisecracks all the time. I needed to get back into my usual groove, and in order to do that I had to make the first small step and tell them about Future Flash. I'm guessing all these events are somehow connected, so solving that mystery as to how it came back should be the first move in solving the puzzle.

According to the clock on my phone, we'd arrive a few minutes into maths class. Nothing worth getting a detention over, but the others had all missed second period. Technically I still had a 'get out of school pass', so I was ok. But in order to organise a meeting, I had to go to class.

Yay.

I sat across the aisle from Jérémie, just as the teacher walked in. In other words, no time to talk to anyone.

"Abulabbas?"

"Present."

"Belpois?"

Noticing I didn't have a book, Ulrich tore some blank pages out of his and handed them to me. I just happened to have a pencil in my pocket. Well hey, I _am_ an artist.

"Della Robbia?"

"Present."

Ms Meyer looked up in surprise, "Nice of you to join us, Odd."

"Pleasure to be here." I replied sarcastically.

She seemed oblivious to it, "I'm sure you can copy all your missed work from your friends. Don't hesitate to ask if you don't understand something."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Delmas?"

"Present."

She continued on with the roll rather uninterestingly. Why can't any of the teachers bother to make things fun every once in a while?

While she was occupied with that, I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a message down.

_Jérémie, can you call a group meeting in mine and Ulrich's room at lunch? It's important._

I folded it up and tried to inconspicuously pass it across the aisle to the young Einstein. He took and read it, writing his response in blue pen. I turned back to the teacher as she finished with the roll and started actually teaching. Something to do with trigonometry, lots of triangles and letters. It probably would've understood it better if I'd have attended the previous lessons. Heck, scratch that. I wouldn't understand it anyway. Can't be bothered with that kind of stuff, who needs it anyway apart from maths teachers?

Jérémie coughed beside me and I quickly took the note back from him before Ms Meyer turned around again. There was more than just one response, but Jérémie's was first.

_Sure, what's up?_

I let out a small sigh. He'd have to wait until the meeting before he found out. But the next response was in black, in Aelita's handwriting.

_Wait until lunch time, Jéré._

After that came a response from Ulrich, apparently he must've taken it from Jérémie and Aelita before they could pass it back to me.

_What, are you going to confess your love to Sissi, Odd? ¬3¬_

I frowned, writing my response.

_The heck? Why do you keep saying that? D:_

I passed it back, still frowning. It didn't take long for him to respond.

_Because it's true :)_

I had to resist growling.

_Liar ¬_¬_

When the paper came back again, it was in the form of a scrunched-up ball thrown at my head. It hit its target. Judging by the handwriting, Sissi had grabbed the paper off Ulrich and written her own responses. She'd even scribbled out some of the earlier ones concerning her.

_Oh, Ulrich. You know I've only got eyes for you!_

The message was followed by several love hearts. Ulrich didn't leave much of a reply.

_That's reassuring_ _._._

_Isn't it just?_

Another heart. That girl abused her love hearts. I feel sorry for Ulrich. But at least it gets him off my back for a while.

* * *

The rest of the lesson wasn't too interesting. The teacher never found out we were passing notes, which is a relief considering that most of the time when they find out they get someone to read it out to the class, which would've been embarrassing. Even if it wasn't true. We didn't pass any more after that, either.

Science was boring, nothing new. I'd asked Ulrich why he thought I liked Sissi, and he'd replied, "Maybe if I say it enough times, it'll come true and she'll leave me alone." I punched him in the shoulder.

Finally lunch came, and I hoped the meeting would be over soon enough for us to eat. Although I doubted it'd last two hours, you never know.

I sat on the floor leaning against my bed, holding Kiwi close to me while we waited for Yumi to show up. Sissi was glaring at me while clinging onto Ulrich, still looking upset about what the note said. But it was him who said it, not me! Still, Ulrich looked annoyed.

It wasn't long before Yumi came in, and Jérémie started the conversation, "So what did you want to talk to us about?"

He sounded really curious, probably a little desperate to find a way to stop Xana. He wouldn't get much, but it was a start. Although I didn't like that he sounded like he was talking to small child.

"Well…" I held Kiwi closer, "It's about what happened before with the Scyphozoa. I lied; Xana told me why she came after me."

There were mixed reactions. Some of them widened their eyes in shock, others frowned, some both.

Jérémie nodded, "Go on."

"I'm telling the truth when I say I don't know why it happened, but Future Flash came back."

"What?" They all looked shocked, aside from Sissi who just looked confused, but Jérémie had been the one to question my statement.

"I really don't know why it happened, honest!" I said quickly enough to sound like a single word.

"Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

They seemed quite content to let Jérémie ask all the questions, but it was kind of scary.

"I had a vision the other day when Xana attacked in the Desert, but I wasn't sure if it had been real or just my imagination. I was going to tell you when I found out though, and Xana confirmed it today."

Jérémie nodded again, looking thoughtful.

Sissi spoke up, "What's Future Flash?"

"Odd's power. It lets him see visions of the near future, but I removed it a while ago."

A thought occurred, "You're not going to remove it again, are you?" I actually felt scared to lose it a second time.

"No, if it came back on its own accord it'd probably escape deletion a second time so there isn't much point in trying. Plus, it must've come back for a reason."

The way he was talking about it sounded weird, as if it was alive. Something gives me the idea that it was far from it.

"Ok," Ulrich frowned, "Forget my idea of handing him over to the Scyphozoa."

"Thanks, Ulrich. You're a true friend."

"You've got that right, good buddy." I rolled my eyes.

"It's not like you to be this secretive, normally you'd be whining about it twenty-four seven."

"I guess I was just…really confused."

"It's ok," Aelita smiled, "We forgive you for lying. Now we can work it out together."

I nodded and Jérémie continued, "It probably has _something_ to do with how we're going to get rid of Xana this time round, judging by your nightmares and such."

"That's what I thought too."

"I might run a bioscan later and see if I can find anything out – if you don't mind, of course."

"If it helps me find answers, not at all."

"Great, shall we go tonight? It shouldn't take too long."

I shrugged, "Sure…can we go get lunch now?"

Every other person in the room smiled, relief obvious on their faces. I was on the road to recovery, and I was hungry.

We all got up at the same time and walked out the door in a happy mood. I left Kiwi on my bed and closed the door behind me once everyone was out, locking it.

Yumi put her hand on my shoulder, smiling silently. She didn't need to say anything; I knew what she meant. I'd finally let them know what was wrong, and we were going to work it all out together.

**

* * *

**

Sappy ending, anyone? Ok, with the 'emoticons' on the note they were passing, FF doesn't like some of the symbols I used which drastically reduces the number of faces you can make, so I had to change them. I originally had actual heart symbols after Sissi's messages, for example, but they were taken out and replaced with spaces. Yeah...the better version's on my dA. Just click the link on my profile.

***gasp* You know what this means, people? Less angsty and depressed Odd and more goofy and hungry Odd! Yay! Let's just hope I can stick to that kind of personality ^^;**


	23. Sexy Lady Creepers in Bikinis

"_Bioscan complete._"

I opened my eyes to the blue wall of the Tower, floating gently back down to the ground. Jérémie had just finished his scan to find out more about what's happening with Future Flash, and possibly my nightmares. Jéré had said that they were harder to look into, though, because it was a mental thing. I wasn't quite clear on the details.

Anyway, the data he just got from me should help solve this mystery. Jérémie thinks that all the events concerning both myself and Xana are connected, so finding out why these things are happening to me could possibly – hopefully – take us at least one step ahead of Xana.

"_Great, I've got everything I need. Thanks, Odd._"

"No problem. So am I coming back in?"

"_No, I've decided to send you and the others on a data-finding mission in Sector Five. They're coming in now. I'm going to work on all the data overnight._"

I shook my head, "Aelita's not going to like that, you know."

"_Actually, we're going to work on it together._" There was a smile in his voice.

"A study date eh, Jéré?"

He ignored me and I snickered.

"_Virtualisation_."

I passed through the Tower's wall while he was speaking, stepping into the Ice Sector. Three bodies began to virtualise in the air a few metres away, wire frames gradually filling with colour before dropping to the ground as three of my fellow Lyokô Warriors.

"_You're going to take the Transporter, I'm sending your vehicles._"

Ulrich frowned, "Why'd you virtualise us so far away from the edge of the Sector? Why didn't you just send us in directly and make Odd take the long way? No complaints here."

I sighed, "Ulrich…"

He smiled and shrugged, "Kidding."

_Ulrich_ ticking _me_ off two times in one day? I'd better fix that sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

As they finished materialising, each of us got on our respective vehicles, Aelita coming with me.

"_Head south __to get to the edge of the Sector._"

"No racing, please." Aelita requested from beside me.

I faked a groan, slouching dejectedly, "Oh, all right, fine." The pink-haired girl giggled.

It didn't take long to reach the Sector's edge, and no monsters were there to slow us down. We got off our vehicles and stood at the edge of the ice floe.

"_I'm entering the code SCIPIO._"

Not long after, a large white orb with a blue Xana eye ascended from, well, somewhere and proceeded to swallow the four of us up. The Transporter – very original name, I know – is the only way to get to Sector Five via the other Sectors. Being inside it was kind of a strange feeling. We all stood with our backs to each other facing out, able to look through the walls of the Transporter to the Ice barrier below. The walls are opaque on the outside so you can't see in.

The Transporter was fast. Ridiculously fast.

After travelling across the Ice Sector for less than a minute, we'd reached the other end of the Sector and were rushing through the blue wall of screens that made up the outer wall of Sector Five. We entered through a hole in the huge blue dome, zooming past corridors and rooms of various shapes and sizes before reaching the Arena.

The white orb stopped gently on the floor of the Arena, opening to let us out before flying back up again and vanishing. And that's when it hit me.

I got that all-too-familiar feeling of wanting to throw up, but thankfully nothing came because Lyokô wasn't designed to cater for someone being sick. But that meant that I couldn't do much to alleviate the feeling apart from waiting it out.

And as if it wasn't bad enough, it was accompanied by a sudden bout of dizziness. The room we were standing in was spinning faster than it should've been, and I lost my sense of which direction was down.

I fell.

Thankfully putting my arms out in front of me to stop my fall worked, and I landed on my hands and knees. The others turned to me in confusion as I held one hand to my stomach to try and ease the need to throw up.

"Motion sickness." I mumbled.

"What?" Aelita crouched down beside me and the door opened on the other side of the room, "But I thought you were over that."

"So did I." I still hadn't figured out why, but for a while after we first started coming to Sector Five I'd get motion sick after using the Transporter. Probably has something to do with balance, but I just don't know. It stopped affecting me a while before Jérémie found out how to send us there directly, but now it was back again. I hate it.

"Maybe I just got used to it after regular trips before." My vision was becoming steady again.

Ulrich glanced at the open doorway, "We'd might as well wait it out. It's not like we're in a hurry or anything."

Before Xana destroyed Lyokô a while ago – Jérémie rebuilt it – there was a mechanism in Sector Five called the Key. If it wasn't activated within three minutes of entering the Arena, the whole middle of the Sector would change shape, trapping whoever was inside at the time. But Jérémie got rid of it after he rebuilt Lyokô so that we wouldn't waste too much time there.

"Just like the old days."

"I've missed them so." I replied sarcastically.

A muffled gasp came from Jérémie's end, "_X__ana's reinstalled the Key mechanism! You've only got two minutes left, run!_"

Brilliant, just brilliant.

Aelita and Yumi didn't hesitate, running straight out of the Arena before Jérémie had finished speaking. Ulrich grabbed my arm and, much to my stomach's distress, yanked me up and didn't let go until I'd gotten my footing, all while running. We didn't have to stop to let the next corridor open because Aelita and Yumi had already reached it, so we just kept on running.

I ignored my nausea like I used to, pretending it wasn't there. It didn't take us long to reach the next room, a large blue one (duh) that reminded me of one we'd encountered before. There was one short platform extending out from the corridor we'd just come out of, then a large gap before the outline of the exit corridor on the other side of the room. Last time we saw a place like this, there was no floor; just a drop to whatever was at the bottom of these crazy rooms. Whatever it was, it looked like a long fall. The gravity in the room had been modified so that we could swim around in the air without falling. This time, however, there was something different filling the abyss.

"Water? Since when is there water is Sector Five?"

Blue water. Jérémie would love this place.

"Maybe Xana felt like having a pool party." I suggested.

Ulrich cheered, "Yes! He's funny again!"

"Was there ever any doubt?" Well, yes there was. But that's not the point.

"_The Key should be directly below you. I don't see any monsters._"

Aelita moved forward to peer into the water, "Somehow I can't really picture swimming Creepers."

"Sure you can. They'd all be lazing around the outside of the room, sipping soft drink and admiring the sexy lady Creepers in bikinis-mph."

Ulrich made sure I'd stopped before removing his hand from my mouth, "That might be taking it a little too far."

"_One minute remaining, hurry up!_"

"I'll go." The Japanese warrior moved to the edge of the platform, taking a graceful dive into the water. I walked forward with Ulrich to try and see what she was doing, but the water got dark a few metres away from the surface. Since no monsters were appearing, all we could do was wait. In the silence, I struggled to keep myself from laughing at the still-lingering image of the pool party Creepers. Xana would be on one of those floating lounge thingies wearing sunglasses. Not that there was any sun to shield her eyes from.

As for how Yumi was breathing underwater, she didn't need to. I knew from experience that since there was no air on Lyokô to begin with, you certainly didn't need to underwater. You still feel a need to hold your breath, but you won't inhale water if you try to breathe. Sure it may seem weird, but I currently had a tail growing out of my backside. Lyokô is weird, no doubt about it.

There was a whir from the other side of the room as the door opened, stopping the countdown. Yumi resurfaced below it not long after and climbed up onto the ledge.

"_Nice job, Yumi._"

No platform appeared to offer a way across, so Aelita waved her hand across her bracelet to bring out her wings and glided across the water. Even though the motion sickness had worn off, I walked over to the wall with intent of climbing it instead of swimming. Ulrich opted for swimming.

"What's the matter, you afraid to get your fur wet?"

"That's a stereotype!" I yelled, "Not always true! Climbing's just easier, and faster." Not all cats hate water.

I proved my point by making it over to the other side before he did. Although if he'd bothered to use Super Sprint I probably wouldn't have beat him. That would look weird in water. Still, I want to see him try it sometime.

As he got out of the water looking completely dry, another weird thing about Lyokô, he frowned, "Has anybody else found the lack of monsters strange?"

"Yeah," Yumi agreed, "Surely Xana would've sent us something by now."

Despite the lack of urgency due to there being no monsters, we still ran through the next hallway to get to the ledge.

Aelita watched for the lift as we stood, "Maybe they're all towelling off after the pool party? Jump."

On her cue, we jumped simultaneously off the edge and landed on the lift as it headed upwards. I smiled at her comment. It's weird how these conversations continue over such obstacles as if we were walking over flat land.

"_Well wherever they are and whatever they're doing, I don't see them on my screens._"

"We'd might as well make use of Xana leaving us alone for once and get this over with quickly."

The lift stopped and we all got off, running onto the platform outside the dome. Aelita went straight to the edge where a floating blue screen appeared in front of her. She began working away at it while the others and I stood guard.

There were no strange lumps in the wall around us, so no Mantas were coming. No Creepers appeared out of nowhere from inside Sector Five. Everything was quiet except for the assortment of beeping noises coming from Aelita's screen. I'm guessing she already knew what to look for so Jérémie didn't have to tell her anything. This was turning out to be a very boring mission.

"So, Yumi…are you doing anything after this?"

"My parents are probably going to kill me if I get home any later than I'm already going to be. Why?"

"Oh, no reason. I was just wondering."

I rolled my eyes as I heard Ulrich walk over to me, "I was just wondering." I mimicked, "Would it kill you to just ask her out already?" I decided to do him a favour and keep my voice low.

"Probably." I gave him a hard stare, "Well I'm sorry for not being as good at it as you are!"

"Look, all you have to do is go up to her and ask, '_Will you go out with me?_'."

"What?" I swear Yumi just appeared out of nowhere beside us just as I said that last part – at precisely the wrong time, "Oh, sorry for interrupting." She turned to walk back to Aelita.

All Ulrich could do was stare wide-eyed and open-mouthed at her retreating back, so I was on my own, "No, it's not like that! You missed the entire conversation! It made sense in context, I swear!"

She looked back over her shoulder, "What context?"

I opened my mouth to respond but nothing came out. If I told her it was because I was giving Ulrich tips on how to ask her out, Ulrich would kill me. If I didn't say anything and she thought that I was asking Ulrich out, Ulrich would kill me. Either way I was dead. Plus my hesitation had caused Yumi to give us both a weird look before continuing walking.

Thankfully Ulrich stepped in, "Why the heck would I be interested in _him_?"

"I'd rather go out with Sissi!"

Ulrich turned on me, "Ha! You admit it!"

"I didn't admit that I liked her!"

"Yes, you did!"

"I didn't!"

I could hear Jérémie trying to stifle a laugh on his end, but Sissi was full on laughing in the background which was kind of strange seeing as she's interested in Ulrich.

Bam. Laser to the shoulder. Our argument immediately stopped and our attention was drawn to the six Mantas closing in on us, one of which had just taken some of my Life Points.

"_Mantas!_"

"No freaking duh."

Aelita looked up momentarily from her screen before going back to it and working faster to get the data she was after.

Yumi took out her fans, "Thanks for the heads up, Jérémie."

"_Sorry, I got distracted._"

You don't say. I held up one arm and aimed for the oncoming enemies as they began shooting all at once. Ulrich began deflecting lasers with that crazy double sabre thing he does. It's hard to explain, and weird to watch. Yumi stood between Aelita and the Mantas, deflecting lasers with one fan while throwing the other. I fired off a few arrows towards the…what do you call a group of Mantas? A school? That makes it sound like I'm firing at Kadic. I don't know. I fired arrows at it, and managed to destroy one of the Mantas. Obviously Jérémie had reloaded my weapon after Xana took away all my ammo.

The group flew overhead, so I dropped my guard for a moment. They couldn't really aim at something beneath them.

"Mines!"

I didn't have enough time to react. A mine landed right between me and Ulrich, knocking us both back. I devirtualised before I hit the ground.

I came out of the scanner with a minor headache, rubbing my temple as I headed back up to the Lab.

Ok, when I said they couldn't aim at something beneath them, I meant with their lasers. I'd forgotten about the mines. They released a little white thing from a hole on their undersides near the base of the tail that blew up on impact. But they didn't just drop; they could also float in midair or follow a target. Stupid Mantas, now I get to watch the fight from Jérémie's screen.

Sissi turned from where she was leaning against the chair, "What was that?"

"Shut up. I forgot, ok?"

Jérémie was working away at something on the screen that I didn't understand, probably incoming data from Aelita, "We heard all of your conversation with Ulrich, so there's no need to try and explain anything."

I sat down on the Holoprojector, "We're going to have tonnes of fun trying to work it out with Yumi later."

Sissi walked up and stood in front of me, "Why were you trying to give Ulrich tips for asking _Yumi_ out?"

"Because they like each other…?"

She flicked her hair behind her shoulder, "Ulrich's mine, you hear? Yumi's nothing but a minor distraction. Ulrich will fall for me in the end."

Before I could respond, she walked back to watch what was going on on Lyokô. I frowned. When will she get it through her thick head that Ulrich has no interest in her whatsoever? Well, probably never. Even after Yumi and Ulrich are married with two children she'll still be chasing after him.

I stood on Jérémie's other side, watching the little icons move around on the grid.

"Isn't it a shame we can't see anything better than this, Sissi? Otherwise you'd be able to see Ulrich running around in skin-tight spandex." I mocked.

"I know, it's so annoying…" She doesn't get it. Not that I'm surprised. I had to resist the urge to slap myself in the forehead.

Nearly all the Mantas were gone now. The second-last one had just been destroyed by Yumi, and Ulrich was going for the next one. Xana hadn't put up very much resistance this time compared to what I'd faced earlier that morning. Actually that further supports my pool party theory; send in tonnes of Creepers and have nothing to do with them after the fight, why not throw a pool party?

"_That's all the data, Jérémie._" The last Manta was destroyed.

"I've got it, Aelita. It's encrypted, though…I'm bringing you in."

"_Yumi, I swear what happened earlier with Odd was just a misunderstanding._"

Yumi didn't get a chance to reply to him before they rematerialised.

* * *

I was having that same nightmare again, at the ruined Kadic grounds. I couldn't spot that ghost-me or anything else of interest, so I figured I'd might as well take a look around. The layout of the buildings was recognisable, and I found myself walking over severely damaged walls to the edge of the forest.

All the trees were scorched black, like some of the buildings. There was a thick layer of ash on the ground, probably what used to be leaf litter, branches and grass. Something had lit the whole forest on fire.

My feet sank into the ash with every step, reminding me of walking through snow. Black snow. I'd hate to imagine what had done this.

Looking up into the tree's branches, I noticed ghost-me – I had nothing else to call him – sitting up there looking down at me, almost invisible against the greyish sky. He didn't make a move to jump down, so I just continued walking.

I came across a huge black lump on the ground. I approached it slowly, not recognising a shape until I was right up next to it. It looked like a horribly deformed Krabe, coloured entirely black by the fire that had ravaged everything else in the forest. I can only hope nobody was trying to hide here when it happened, whatever 'it' was.

A Krabe…could Xana have sent a monster army to destroy the school?

I circled the Krabe without caution. It was obviously dead. There was a hole in the top of it, where the Xana eye would normally be. But there were also some more holes all over the top that were unmistakably cat scratches.

I ran three fingers and thumb along the cuts, getting soot on my fingertips. They were mine.

I can't say I was completely surprised, not after I'd found what I'm hoping wasn't really Aelita and just some clone of her back at the buildings. But it still gave me a weird feeling inside.

I glanced around again at the destruction. At least I know we tried to stop whatever happened here. Hopefully though, we'll be able to stop it before it happens for real.

* * *

I stared up at the ceiling before rubbing both hands across my face, wiping off a small bit of sweat. The nightmare had left me tired as usual, but not as tired as previous times. Maybe I was gradually getting used to them.

I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, then opened one of the drawers under my bed to retrieve a small notebook and then a pencil from my bag. After what I found out last night, it seemed a good idea to record everything I dream about, just in case I forgot something like you do with regular dreams. I left a couple of pages blank so that I could fill in all my previous ones before writing about my dream last night.

Ulrich walked in smelling like he'd just had a shower. I decided not to tell him about what Sissi had said to me the night before. It's not like he didn't already know anyway.

"What did you dream about?"

"Sexy lady Creepers in bikinis."

He started getting his stuff out for the day, "How can you tell whether they're male or female?"

I looked up for a moment, pausing my writing. I shook my head before continuing, "I'm not going to answer that."

He chuckled, slipping his books into his shoulder bag. I slipped my pencil behind my ear and re-read what I'd written, "Did you clear everything up with Yumi last night?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you."

I put the notebook back in the drawer and closed it, proceeding to get dressed, "It's not my fault she has bad timing."

"Oh, I almost forgot. Jim told me Delmas wanted to see you before class started."

"Do you think it can wait until after breakfast?"

"I don't know."

I shrugged, "I'll go after breakfast then."

* * *

Two serves of breakfast later, I was on my way to Delmas' office. It was about half an hour before classes started. I'd noticed the others looking at me strangely while we ate, and I still hadn't figured out why. Oh, Jérémie and Aelita had come back from the Factory earlier too. I still think that decrypting data wasn't the only thing they were doing last night.

I knocked on the secretary's door, letting myself in, "Jim said Mr Delmas wants to see me."

Ms Weber nodded without looking up from whatever she was doing, "Yes, he's expecting you. Go on in, Odd."

Delmas was working on some papers when I walked in. Does he ever get a break?

"Good morning, Della Robbia."

"Morning." I sat down in front of the desk. It wasn't often I was here on good terms, this felt really strange.

He put down his pen and looked up at me. I noticed him giving me a quick once-over, probably assessing how tired I looked. He, like the others, gave me a strange look. By now it was getting annoying.

"I see you've been making progress with your sleeping problems." I nodded. "I'd like for you to return to class as usual, starting today. I'm sure you can copy Belpois' notes on all the lessons you've missed. Is that alright with you?"

"Of course." Of course not. There goes my freedom until the end of the year.

"Excellent. And just out of curiosity, have you been able to find out why you were so tired before?"

"Er…" Yes, Sir. But I can't tell you the reason because you'll either call the police and have the Supercomputer shut down or call me a lunatic, "…no."

"Hm…I guess it's normal for kids to have sleeping problems at this time in their lives, what with all the fuss about exams and whatnot."

"That could be the reason; too many exams. You should cancel some of them, maybe then-"

"That's not an option, I'm afraid." Darn, so close. "Ok, you're dismissed."

"Thanks, Mr Delmas."

As I left the room, I could've sworn I saw that penguin game on his computer screen, but I probably imagined it.

I ran into Jim on the way out of the building. He seemed to be in a happy mood, smiling and humming to himself.

"Morning, Jim!"

He looked at me funny – why is everyone doing that? Is there something on my face? – before smiling again, "Oh, good morning Odd! Fine day this morning, isn't it?"

"Sure is." For you, maybe. You don't have to go to class. But at least the blue sky is better than that ash tray in my dreams. "You seem to be in a good mood today."

"I sure am! Mr Delmas is considering letting me teach a disco class instead of ballroom, isn't that great?"

Jim, Paco King of Disco. It doesn't seem to fit sometimes, "Really? Cool."

"So what did Mr Delmas want to see you for?"

"He said I had to go back to class now that I've recovered from my sleeping problems."

"Ah, I heard about that." What, is it the talk of the school? Great, just great. "I had problems sleeping when I was your age. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and lie there for hours, just thinking. Eventually I'd go back to sleep, of course, but I'd be super tired in the morning."

"That sounds horrible, Jim." I've never experienced anything like that myself, but it would probably suck if it happened on a daily basis.

"Yeah, it does doesn't it…" his happy mood had vanished, only to reappear again a moment later, "Well, wish me luck for Mr Delmas' opinion on the disco classes!"

"Ok, good luck."

With that, he walked into the admin building and I headed for the dorms to pack my stuff. Jim was a very interesting character, especially considering how much he could ramble on and still not want to talk about it.

* * *

Jérémie had told us before class that he wanted to have a meeting at the Factory that afternoon, but we weren't really sure why. I'd told everyone what Delmas had told me, and was now sitting in science class beside Ulrich.

"Ok, class. Today we're going to replicate Louis Pasteur's famous experiment that disproved the theory of spontaneous generation…" Seriously, what is it with science classes and Pasteur's experiment? We've already done it every year up til now. Isn't once enough? Stupid biology.

Ms Hertz began to write out the aim and method of our experiment on the board for us to copy into our books, as if we didn't know it off by heart by now.

I whispered to Ulrich, "You know what's boring? Repetition. Not unlike my dreams, but that stuff's actually important.

"You know what's boring? Repetition. Not unlike my dreams, but that stuff's actually important."

Ha. He just glared at me before going back to his work.

"Darn it, where's my pencil?"

I felt something being pulled out from behind my ear, and Ulrich waved said pencil in front of my face, "So _that's_ why everyone's been looking at me strangely this morning…" I tried to take it, but he held it out of my reach.

"Maybe you should be paying attention to this stuff. We've got our Brevet early next year."

I tried to take the pencil from him again; he didn't move it away this time, "Don't remind me." The nightmares came at just the wrong time, now it's either cram or fail. Joy.

I can't help but wonder what Jérémie wants to meet about this afternoon.

* * *

**This chapter simply did not want to be written. What's it been…a month? Ack D: Sorryyyyy ;-;**

**I abused the italics. Seven Word pages. It was originally going to be longer, but I decided to cut the last part out and put it in the next one, which will probably make it super long.**

**Whoo had my English Schools Certificate Trial on Tuesday, and guess whose POV I wrote in the narrative ;D I chose the theme "Life is changing everywhere" and unfortunately, after I'd finished, I realised that I'd written about Odd writing an essay. How depressing. But still, most of it was him thinking about stuff and not actually writing, so it covered the theme of change while still being a narrative. The only hint I dropped about it not being me and actually being someone else was that I wrote that the narrator was doing their Brevet, like a French SC. I didn't mention anyone's name or anything.**

**Plus it was completely impromptu, written on the spot. HA. Like old Survivor chapters. But I'm over that now, I'm actually planning out the entire thing and boy is it massive…that's partly why I haven't updated in a month. On the bright side, I've seen stories that take even longer to update.**

**Oh, and I fixed some formatting errors in previous chapters, then accidentally replaced chapter 1's text with chapter 2's, so there were two chapters the same. I fixed it though.**

**Just to clarify, this is an OxSi fic, not a UxO one. I just put that part in because it was funny. And I am evil.**

**Sexy lady Creepers in bikinis.**


	24. Replikas

**Hey, remember this old thing? Well, I started this chapter Christmas Eve last year, and only finished it today. I have to wake up at 6 every morning now, and it's really taken a toll on my motivation. I'll try to update more often, but I won't have a once-a-week thing or anything like that. Honestly, I cannot apologise enough, but it's not my fault, it's the timetabling program! *points***

**Thanks so much to everyone who's pestered me to keep going with this. It's really nice to know that people like it that much XD I love you guys. I'd put a heart here but FF won't let me. Just visualise one :3**

* * *

"Shouldn't you be copying Jéré's work for class?"

I looked up from my notebook at Ulrich's question and shook my head, "I've got to get this down first before I forget." I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to write a log of these dreams before, because it'll be undoubtedly useful in the future. I like to think of it as a jigsaw puzzle I'm creating the pieces of as I go, and as more pieces are created the better we can piece them together. It won't be much use if we get to some point later on and I can't remember a key event, so writing them down would be the smartest thing to do.

Speaking of not remembering them, my memories of the first few dreams were a little fuzzy, but I can still remember the most important things to write down.

When we'd arrived at Jérémie's room to see why he'd called us here in the first place, the young Einstein himself had simply sat down at his chair and started working on some sort of program, not saying a word to us. He still seemed pretty serious, so nobody wanted to disturb whatever it was he was doing.

I'd gone back to my room to get the notebook, and the others were just sitting around waiting. Sissi had managed to sit between Ulrich and Yumi on the bed, preventing them from sitting close to each other. Sissi was now trying to snuggle up to the brunet, much to his discomfort. He was trying to ignore her by talking to me, sitting on the desk being antisocial and writing in my notebook. Aelita was hovering over Jérémie's shoulder trying to follow what he was doing.

I took a new page and started recounting what I'd seen.

"Nice weather today."

Ulrich's comment earned a frown from me; he was obviously struggling to find a topic of conversation, "We always have nice weather."

He groaned as I went back to writing, edging a little further away from Sissi, who just closed the gap between them again, "Somebody please talk to me!"

"Replikas."

Everyone jumped at Jérémie's intrusion, turning to face him at the computer. He swivelled around in his chair with a grave look on his face, "Xana's created more Replikas."

My grip on the pencil became limp, "Tell me you're joking."

"This isn't a joke, Odd. I found one or two using the data we collected from Sector Five. It seems that Xana was building up power in Sector Five using a weak connection to the Internet while the Supercomputer was turned off, somehow, and when we switched it back on she transferred herself to the Digital Sea and created Replikas like last time.

"There are more than just what the scan found, I just need to improve it in order to find them. I have no idea how many there are exactly, but there could potentially be thousands and counting."

We all remained silent and let the news set in. The Replikas were, well, replicas of sectors on Lyokô. Not the whole of Lyokô itself, just an individual sector. They look like Lyokô from the outside; a huge sphere in the Digital Sea. Xana can use the Replikas to activate Towers that will take a long time for us to reach.

"Oh, and there's another problem; it seems that since I can't find all the Replikas with the scanner, Xana can activate as many Towers as she wants right under our noses and we wouldn't know it."

Yumi rolled her eyes, "Excellent. Just great."

But there was one good thing about the Replikas; physically they're supercomputers, like ours, scattered around the globe. The most practical way to destroy them was to use a program called Translation and become spectres on Earth so that we can blow it up or disable it or something. So essentially it means we can have all our Lyokô powers on Earth.

The gravity of the situation was lifted when Sissi decided to pipe up, "What's a Replika?"

I suppressed a sigh. It's not her fault we hadn't explained them to her, but it'd be nice not having to explain every little thing.

Jérémie shook his head, "Get Ulrich to tell you later."

"What?" Ulrich cried, "But-"

"No buts. Heh, in exchange for your suffering, I'll let you be Translated first with Odd in place of Aelita. You…you don't mind, right Aelita?"

"Not at all."

I tapped my pencil on the table thoughtfully, "Why me and Aelita first?"

"Easy. Your powers and abilities combined make a good scouting party." He cast a glance at Ulrich, "Plus I'm pretty sure you're less likely to shoot first, ask questions later."

I smirked, "Pretty sure?"

"I doubt you're as bad as Ulrich."

"So do I." I turned back to my writing, finishing a sentence left incomplete by the announcement. I then closed the notebook, finished with my catching up.

"I'm going to send you in this afternoon after class. We'll meet in the lab."

We nodded and proceeded to leave, but as I jumped off the table I felt a tug on my shirt sleeve.

"You can't leave yet, Odd. You've got some study to catch up on, right?"

"Jérémieeee!" I whined.

He picked up some books off the table, "Come on, we'll study in your room."

I sighed in defeat, "Onwards to my doom…"

Jérémie just laughed.

* * *

I spent all the time between classes copying down notes I'd missed and having Jérémie try to explain everything to me. Naturally I found many interesting ways to distract myself from doing work. One such method included pretending to faint in the middle of one of Jérémie's needlessly drawn-out lectures. I think I may have overdone the drama though, because after a couple of minutes of telling me to get up Jérémie resorted to hitting me on the head with a heavy textbook.

Thankfully this afternoon wouldn't be spent studying, and instead I'd be helping destroy a supercomputer somewhere on another part of the globe.

We had already made it to the lift which used to take us to the Skid's docking bay in Sector Five. There would appear to be only one problem with this, one nobody had bothered to ask yet. I already knew of course, because I'd asked a while ago. Whether the others were assuming everything was ok or if Jérémie had told them earlier I don't know.

The lift was still there, and I guess we didn't really have a reason to take it away in the first place since it wasn't doing any harm in just being there. It was just sitting at the end of the small walkway we were crossing, waiting bottom of the climb for someone to come use it again. If lifts were sentient beings, I reckon this one would be pretty lonely, disused for a couple of months. But since they're not sentient, it's fine.

Man, my thoughts go along some weird tangents sometimes.

We boarded said lift and I felt the regular shift in gravity as it began to move upwards. It sounded kind of like a huge ball rolling up the wall.

Ulrich raised his voice over the sound, "So…what's the point in doing this, again?"

I cast a glance at Aelita, who was standing behind me, and winked, "What do you mean, Ulrich?"

Aelita joined in, approaching Ulrich with a concerned look on her face, "Have you forgotten all about our mission to stop Xana and save the whole world from destruction?"

"No, I mean-"

I walked closer, forcing Ulrich up against the safety barrier, "Don't you care about all the innocent people that could be killed if we let Xana triumph?"

"No-"

"How can you be so careless as to forget the point in doing all this?"

"I didn't-"

"How can you be so-"

"Where's the Skid?"

At Ulrich's outburst the lift squealed to a halt at our destination, where the Skid was docked and waiting.

"Oh."

While he was looking at it I ducked behind Yumi, who'd been watching our argument with an amused expression on her face, and pushed her into Ulrich. Then I hurried, grinning, after Aelita to avoid a roundhouse kick to the face or some other attack of the same sort from Yumi.

"Nicely done, Princess."

"Why thank you."

Aelita and I high fived to celebrate our confusing Ulrich and waited in front of the teleporter spots for the two lovebirds to join us. They didn't say anything to each other; they just sort of walked away. Lame. I could barely hear Jérémie laughing over the microphone.

"You rebuilt it." Yumi stated.

"_Of course! I've been working on it ever since Xana came back, just in case we needed it in future._"

"Good thinking."

"_Alright, is everyone ready to go?_"

The four of us moved to stand on the teleporter spots, one each with Aelita in the middle. "Ready!" We chorused.

"_Energise!_" I watched as the white circle below Aelita began to glow, getting brighter and brighter before releasing a huge cylinder of light towards the ceiling. Aelita vanished into the brightness, reappearing in the Skid. My transporter spot followed suit, then Ulrich's, then Yumi's.

I didn't really feel anything between disappearing there and reappearing here, but it was kind of strange to think about it. But then again, we'd had some pretty bad glitches on Lyokô.

"_Cockpit to Navskids, do you read me?_" Aelita asked over the intercom. Yumi, Ulrich and I each answered in turn. "_Excellent. Standing by for lift-off, Jérémie._"

"_Alright,_" he responded, "i_Releasing support._"

The five support pillars around the submarine drew back and clanked into place.

"_Ignition, powering vertical._" I heard the engines roar to life once more, "_Lift-off!_"

The Skid flew upwards and out of Drydock, exiting through a hole at the top of Sector Five. I raised an eyebrow. Thinking back to when I'd been cornered on top of the dome by William and Xana recently, I wondered why I hadn't noticed it there. It would've offered me another place to run, but they probably would've cut me off at the lift or something anyway. Maybe Xana blocked it up, I don't know...

"_All indicators are go, you're good for leaving Sector Five. The tunnel will be open in just a second._"

Aelita piloted the Skid to the nearest tunnel in the outer dome. The usual blue stream of data going from the dome to one of the sectors outside had been stopped by Jérémie, leaving an opening for us.

Ulrich and Yumi began to chat idly, but I chose to ignore them. It didn't seem like an interesting topic; tests or something.

Entering the yellow area outside Sector Five, Aelita began her safety check.

"_Shields activates, sonar activated, stabilisers online and checked, primary access clear, laser generators online. Ready, everyone?_"

"Ready." We replied at once.

"_Here we go!_"

I blinked as the Skid sped down below the water's surface. Something made me think that since the ship had taken less time to rebuild, it wouldn't be as strong as before. Whether it was or it wasn't I didn't know, but it was holding up perfectly fine.

We dove a little further down and exited through a tunnel out into the great expanse of the Digital Sea. The water on Lyokô was just a small body compared to the rest of the Sea. Maybe there was a leakage into Lyokô or something. The liquid around us was tinted blue for now, littered with little white things that resembled dust motes. Ahead of us, large, angled structures similar to the ones making up Sector Five hung down from above. There was also a large circular structure nearby, what the two Einsteins called a hub, I think. It was connected to a series of glowing tubes reaching skyward.

"_Aelita, I'm sending you the co-ordinates._"

"_Roger that, Jérémie. Rotation._"

The Navskid I was standing in began to change from a standing spot into a seat. The Skid itself was changing into its horizontal form. I drew my legs towards me and sat cross-legged.

"_Powering up turbo props and auxiliary engines._"

The engines began to whir, unsettling the water, and we sped off.

I smiled to myself. We were headed to the Replikas again, to Earth in our Lyokô forms.

"Replika, here we come!"

"_Someone's excited._" Ulrich sounded amused.

"Of course! Out of all the pros and cons of Xana's return, this has got to be one of the best pros."

"_That is, if you do get chosen to go to Earth today._"

Jérémie joined in,"_Yumi's right, I might've changed my mind between this morning and now._" He spoke in a playful tone.

I frowned, "I'll have to go sometime or another."

"_Not necessari- Aelita! Kongres headed your way!_"

"Already?" All joking aside, I looked down to my sonar where I could see four red dots gaining on the Skid. I moved to grab the joystick and thruster either side of my seat in anticipation of the pinkette's call.

"_Is William with them?_" Yumi asked.

"_No, just four Kongres. I'm releasing the Navskids._"

My Navskid shuddered as it broke away from the base of the Skid. Once I was sure I was clear, I pushed the thruster and sped off towards the Kongres.

I loved the speed; the adrenaline rush you get as you race towards danger at speeds you've never been at before. And when you throw in the monsters, now that's a real thrill.

"Yahoo!"

"_Don't go having _too_ much fun, Odd._" Ulrich pulled up beside my Navskid with Yumi not far behind. I was a little disappointed in his serious tone of voice until he continued, "_I'll be taking most of these before you even get a chance!_"

* * *

The Skid surfaced inside the Replika. The Kongres hadn't been too much of an issue, but I was still a little ticked about Ulrich stealing the last one. He kept saying that I'd taken too long with my first, but I swear my name was written all over that thing!

Tall trees around us indicated that we were in a Forest Replika, just like the first one we encountered last time. That last one had been destroyed in a display of skill and prowess by none other than moi. And Ulrich certainly didn't help with all his stabbing everything in sight.

Jérémie guided Aelita to a nearby Tower where she docked the Skid. We were ready to go.

"_Ok guys, ready for Translation?_"

"_Ready._"

"Definitely."

"_Oh I almost forgot, I tweaked the program a little so that you can now stay on Earth for just over an hour. Sound good?_"

The old Translation time limit was around 15 minutes, I think. After that we'd be sent back to the Skid. This meant that if whoever was guarding the Skid could hold off any threat on the Replika for long enough, we could take as long as we wanted on Earth. This was going to be, "Perfect."

"_Good luck, boys._" Yumi called.

"_Translation._"

* * *

**Not my best and kinda short, but hey, it's something! Don't worry, the next chapter should be good. I just need to get back into my groove again. And, y'know, make Yumi more prominent.**

**For those who were wondering, the trial narrative I mentioned in the last chapter got me 16/20. They thought it was from my POV, silly markers.**

**...the first AutoCorrect suggestion for 'Kongres' is 'Congress.' Ohnoes! The gang's being attacked by the US Congress and their new anti-streaming laws! D8**

**Oh! I almost forgot, I have a few holes in my overall plan for Survivor, and it'd be great if you guys could fill them. What's in it for you? Your plot gets published, I'll love you forever plus you get a free art request. So if you want to help out, PM me :)**


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